Spits par ees per ets weg ep ayy aa ahs Dia Spatbtee kM a aaa taa ie) saple eeataee athe eds, 
<p 4s - = “6 to 9 teers 

: == Stee str 

SSeS 


EY ra ad i ee ee Weg gay ae 
> = : 
Spams sag tadet eas 


SS IT 


a 
eo 
= 


Pt OE Ti” ee eet Cee eet My SLL. FF, 
x = 
Ss -=- 
= Sate aie! rs soo Ss SSS 
- = opts — 7 
atertoteeoes 
pe Son Stee = = pe smsery mc nee Socerires arses — 
= y = a " wert + Sox oe 
ere ere erirey : 
‘= ar nasas atop aie TE aes oe ar ny Po ne ren OTS og Ps a - es oes 
En as Re ES Sz 
srs Au nas S = = : = 
x = .: Ss Sr ee: : arr =a Sesto ene 
= 2 = ne Peeron ose Sere SSS Saenoe = = 
= : = ise : SESS i 
Ses - . my : = re Sts : eeies Seer 
are Se wes stro = - vs > 
poo ne on easectnennsy narapangn amma ataeneeaam en oes eae shan agedinnees “ 
4 - mee = . Ser == = Srerverre = —- 
- - z = Teoh tes 
Cae yee pore rer er emawrannr areas . ee Es = 
See eee Petite ese ee 
— =q+ se Soa + ers 
afer rer peer er mr ne reed 
a TE - 
3% SSTeeeta pt 
Syoseerons = = - 
wh Sader $issezenertysecenesocnsee: 
p epee : a 
4S 


ae Sree ase arr rr a nt ee bead Bs ble dts be debe 


aorpnanonasoureemee 
sanpmewogsre secssweneeed: 
tr are 
oxi Soest rns = tres 
= <n at. = 
perme ex) taser ee Seeteeea 
a = = = 
2 SS =. z 
Lies 2h y PRAMS = 6 S < - 
seen <a ase eeeemnomcreremesneen 
= = = rms: Se 
+ atest =a * 
e. 
Sereno ae = —— 
wa Diet 
= oro ~> 
Saee = 3 <= 
. ees -- <5 
3 52 Se ares Spenares. = 
Slat, 


Ie 
or ES. 


Le 


ate — 
SSS 
SSS = = 
- . = _ St *s = 
= st i ~ 
= HS SSS SSeS Saeeeeeceenes 
eee 
es 


SS SE 


Se a anaes UE Ra peters 


: : 
SS SS SS ET 


ot 
ST 
Sostesnesereetmme ten, 





an 
Sane Dh 


. 
Fr.) b nal 
~ ws - 


=< ih 


pois > rh By 
ed Acie east 


be 


<¥ 4 


7 » ~ ayers hey 
oa : 





WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
NEW YORK + BOSTON - CHICAGO - DALLAS 
ATLANTA * SAN FRANCISCO 


MACMILLAN & CO., Limirep 


LONDON + BOMBAY + CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 


THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Lro. 
TORONTO 


it OF PANE 


» 20 1925 
WHAT AND WHY I8Q LAN By 






RICHARD LA RUE’ SWAIN, PH.D. 


AUTHOR OF “WHAT AND WHERE IS GOD?” ETC. 


JQew Pork 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1925 


All rights reserved 


CoPpyRIGHT, 1925, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 





Set up and electrotyped. 
Published September, 1925. 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY 
THE CORNWALL PRESS 


IN GRATEFUL MEMORY 
OF MY BELOVED WIFE, 
ANNA SHUEY SWAIN 






1” a. as 


, sad an tf 


i 
wts . 
“J 









as i : ‘ 
« A : 
Pi ut hy) +) i) ’ 
; Aas X ; J hy je y a ry. 





. 
is 
iy 
p t r, 
: iy? 14 
: 
y ; 
pie ona ee 
| - 
4 nh) ri 
iy i, e; bd 
| ; 
4 > 
’ 





Tes 6 te 
ear he: 





FOREWORD 


A! pen-written letter by the hand of Lyman Abbott, 
suggesting this volume and containing his reasons why 
such a book should be written is printed below. Besides 
serving as a “Foreword” to the book, it will give Dr. 
Abbott’s friends pleasure, now that he is gone, to get 
this additional glimpse into his mind and heart. 


404 West 116th St., N. Y. City. 
6th Feb., 1921. 
My DEAR Dr. SWAIN: 


I presume that you see the Outlook, and there- 
fore will have seen my review of your book in 
this week’s issue (Feb. 9). If not, let me know, 
and I will see that a copy is sent to you. 

I should like to see you follow it with another 
on a cognate theme. 

There are two fundamental teachings of the 
Bible which need elevating and emphasizing in 
our material and Epicurean age. One that God 
made man in his own image, that we are his 
offspring, not merely his creatures, and there- 
fore it is in man we are to look for the image 

7 


FOREWORD 


of God. This truth you have brought out with 
great clearness in your volume. It is because 
Burroughs imagines that we are to look through 
nature to nature’s God that he presents such a 
curiously self-contradictory philosophy in his 
book—“Accepting the Universe.” 

The other teaching is that the end of life is 
life itself. Therefore it is that Christ says he 
came to give life and give it more abundantly ; 
and that his life here and his heaven hereafter 
is “eternal life.’ What Paul calls “the life 
that really is.’ But Burroughs and his school 
—indeed, all the materialistic school—assume 
that the object of love should be to confer hap- 
piness. That isa mistake. It should be to con- 
fer life. And it is a fatal mistake. It lands 
us inevitably in the Buddhist’s Nirvana—uncon- 
scious existence;—or in the Mahomedan’s 
Paradise,—a kind of celestial Paris; or in the pig 
philosophy which Carlyle has so keenly satir- 
ized. What noble nature would wish to be 
robbed of the capacity to suffer. It endows 
us with at least three cardinal virtues—courage, 
patience, and pity or compassion. Yes! and 
with piety, too; for we never draw so near to 
God as when suffering drives us to the Great 
Comforter. 

If this subject grips you, you could follow 
your volume on “What and Where Is God?” 


FOREWORD 


with one on “What Is Life?”, which philosophy 
the Church and especially our young people 
greatly need. 
Yours sincerely, 
LyMAN ABBOTT. 


ie 


a hy ro. 
v4 f 


’ ut gn | é 

cal } 4 

Y iy ve) yl ar 
4 ae 


ee 
4 

ie 
aye ign 





PREFACE 


What and Why Is Man? is meant to be a companion 
volume to What and Where Is God? Each volume 
widely and vitally supplements the other. 

Dr. Lyman Abbott was the first one to suggest that 
I write on this “cognate” theme. The publishers, like- 
wise, requested me to write this volume and to keep it, 
like What and Where Is God?, in the realm of experi- 
ence. 

Therefore, I have undertaken to give very human 
answers to perplexing questions that are universally 
being asked concerning (1) human origin, (2) human 
birth, (3) human struggle, (4) human destiny, and (5) 
God’s relation thereto. 

What is everything all about? Is it possible to think 
well of things and to take hold with a strong and cheer- 
ful hand? 

Is it “through nature to God?” Or “through man 
to God?” Some writers take the former road, some the 
latter. But in my opinion, it is very necessary to take 
both roads; and, what is equally important, to look 
through God for the image of the true man and for the 
true significance of nature. To see things whole, every 
available viewpoint must be frequently used. 

It is reason for regret that the manuscript had to go 

11 


12 PREFACE 


to the publishers before there was time for it to be read 
by some theological expert; but as the purpose of the book 
was to record with accuracy the things which I certainly 
believe and which, with too much failure, I endeavor to 
practise, the lack of such a reading is not as important as 
it would have been had I been assuming to present with 
accuracy the views current among scholars. But I must 
thank with heartfelt gratitude the publishers: First, for 
asking me to write the book; and, second, for offering 
very many invaluable suggestions in the final prepara- 
tion of the manuscript. 

To make the reading of the book easier and therefore, 
more enjoyable to the average person, the publishers asked 
for the privilege of breaking up the paragraphs into 
small sections. This extra labor and expense by them 
will, doubtless, be appreciated by many. The author’s 
paragraphs are indicated by the paragraph sign. 

ito DSS 


Locust Lodge, 
Route 1, Box 11, 
Bridgeport, Conn. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I 


MET SEY: Uo fates Coa cAI aN Did So's trate ti car akeee Kteve vs 


CHAPTER II 


How Dip Gop MAKE THE HumMaAN Bopy?........... 
1. Is the evolutionary origin of man compatible with the 


2. Which view of man’s origin is the better supported by 
PY eV fexd bh get ihe AD oh AC hea hes Ah ANE alan Bieter ge ACT ALU da 
3. May one still be a useful Christian if he does not believe 
MT OVOIITION Lane chk ce ieee se vice daicid Ce euetiias 


CHAPTER IIT 


Is THE METHOD OF HUMAN PROPAGATION IDEAL?.... 
I. Is the method of human reproduction becoming to the 
PIVINETOOISUONY fi 0 Sie tate ts thai « Pda Sie eee wisi o 

2. Would it not be better if the sex impulse did not appear 
before the age of fitness for marriage?............. 

3. Are sex conditions at the present time a ground for 
OVMMIB Or; PESSIMISM TP, Gu) ca a wees soe ee a nlek 

CHAPTER IV 
PIO AIG ITER eDOUIDY NIADE LS). bo celia as wis ons wee ae : 


1. Could God have awakened souls to consciousness before 
He shaped His energies into a highly organized sense 
MOMYE ECE Be IE. ay he cate ae pe CRS Ene le ihe Wie oe Rib Qa ctelane 


13 


44 
54 


87 


14 CONTENTS 


PAGE 
4. Should children ten or twelve years of age join the 
Ghorrch 0. sss tein a. cata een eae eee a ee eR eile 
5. Is it wise, kind, or necessary for God to ordain that we 
must pass through a dangerous period of adolescence? 101 


6. Are there temptations peculiar to mature life?........ 107 
7, Isit-a ‘misfortune to grow \Oldeu oie eee eo as 112 
8. Is death a curse inflicted because of man’s sin?........ 116 
CHAPTER V 
Wuy> Din Gop MAKE MAN AT ALD? 30. aes eee. 119 
tIs solitary; life ‘worth. line’, see ae eat ee ees se 121 
2. Without children, could God live a rational life?........ 123 
3. Without social relations, could God have character?.... 126 
4. With Himself as the sole inhabitant of the universe, how 
could God ‘love? \.i/ CSUN Case sree ese oy 129 
5. Did God realize how much suffering having a family 
would cause both Him and them?...............-... 134 
CHAPTER VI 
Wuy WERE WE Not Born IN HEAVEN? ........... 140 
1, Was anyone ever born in heayenfew sass se veenan sss 142 
2. Would a perfect heaven be a good place in which to 
beste: Lie? isn Wack. ait he eee teams thine ae 147 
3. Is this earth an ideal place in which to begin life?.... 148 
4. Was a soul, bound by no genealogical ties to nature, ever 
created’ apart /from, nature csi. ne eee e eee aot 
5. If God has dealt fairly with us, why do we complain 
of our’ lot??\0.-0 Sein Te ae ee ee ee ee 156 
CHAPTER VII 
Does Gop Cause EARTHQUAKES AND CYCLONES? .... 163 
1. Why does God cause violent disturbances in nature?.... 165 
2. Why does God send pestilences?...5...+....:.0505+- 17I 
3 Why did God make nature “red in tooth and claw’?.... 174 
4. W hy does God permit the innocent and helpless to suffer? 178 
5. Is it right that children should suffer for the sins of 


their parents? » uiscaieys es ate eee Beale a ee 186 


CONTENTS 5 


I5 


PAGE 
6. If God sees all human suffering, how can He be happy? 189 
7. Why does God permit the bad to prosper and the good 


te Pall tc 8 oak ale ea Wieaie ed ale Wetectstt aera 192 
CHAPTER VIII 
WWETPRE GOTO A SING GOME. E ROM Bo0ta.0°. ea feed eke 199 
1. Could sin have entered God’s good world without the 
Seductive: influence, of a, devil ?. 4 s..0.. os cu ciedee vce 202 
Aelepthetes al persoual devile sous wos, 3. ole ceca oe 203 
AV da YS SIE Lal Sys eek ee eae ae ak oo hi cewek ne 207 
BOAVY OY COGs WE SILT: ae eae res Bs a Teh ae ee 209 
Bee VV OMIS CO, Dladtne. TOLLSIN alam went cag Pecks ul bate mahal 217 
Gea God. cant a 1 sinnernu, 7a, ie Se ku acty terns 222 
Rete uere rat vaValie itl Sil fe ars setts ssid lsat ale oa Sha hee eee 223 
CHAPTER IX 
SOLPNLA NO DATES IR OARD trae oti teas ha wate eon ae 226 
FeeVV-aS theter a) ttimatiieall ich woe ced ben's wb hee oenes RUS 232 
2. Could man have avoided sin altogether?............... 238 
3. Has man won character through sin?............+06: -- 245 
4. Does the law of evolution guarantee progress will 
Pe CIEP CENTS ol ey Sp OMA ge meyte col sh 4 Sb chur eae Oe ily Sele ORR eA Mes 246 
GHAPTER CX 
We EVOLVED ESUS MOLE Cin as sa yiten dD csas eh eaden aes diets gee 251 
1. Did Jesus die to appease the moral indignation of God?.. 256 
ope Mats RE POE Wt ee CREO U1 ee ia La bok Gri AIR A ne yetirg Seep we 258 
3. Without the shedding of innocent blood, was salvation 
WASTE PER eRL ce eat ah sid ee isin ls ie a Ae mee a Sante eae 2 
4. What great truth did the old orthodoxy conserve?...... 267 
5. How, then, does the death of Jesus aid in our salvation? 273 
CHAPTER XI 
MRT EMOS VV $00 ELA ire cue dar ae Neetn OU Ose teciceul ex ate erases 280 
I. Does prayer change God’s will.....: 2.2... ccecseceee 283 
2. What is acceptable prayer?......1..cecsscceseccccece 286 


16 CONTENTS 


PAGE 

3. Is the reflex influence of prayer its chief value?...... 293 
4.Does. ‘God | pray fines cee aids beer oe aie lan oe 297 

5. How can we make God seem real when we pray?...... 302 

CHAPTER XII 

For (WHAT D0 \WESEAVESOS lcs ee oeaecce. 308 
1. Is “the pursuit of happiness” the true aim of life?..... 312 

2. Is righteousness’ the goal’ot lferocr ss... ses ee 316 

4, (What, then,:1s: the highest. aim (Gt" irc ya- as a gals rele 318 

4.: Shall wwe :reach’ the goakosw. viv tay ae one vhac sarees 329 


WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


CHAPTER I 
“WHO MADE GOD?” 


Was ever anything made out of nothing? — 
Is the visible universe a part of God? 


Are the attributes of God identified with the 
visible universe? 


‘@ To start this volume with “Who made the Maker?” 
gives us the strategic advantage of commencing at the 
very beginning and of paving the way for all that follows. 
@ A six-year-old boy continued to perplex his mother by 
asking her who made God until finally she told him 
that God made Himself. 

To allay his fear of me, a visitor, she explained that 
I was not a medicine doctor, but a doctor who knew 
about God. 

In the morning the little fellow came to accompany 
me to the breakfast table, and his only words shyly 
spoken were, “Did God make Himself?’ 

@ An intelligent man of sixty said to me, “It gets us 
nowhere to say that because we are and because the world 
17 


18 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


is, there must be a Creator; it only pushes the question 
back one step. Who made Him? Where did He come 
from? If something existed without being made, it might 
have been anything; it might have been the universe. 
What is the use of inventing a mystery to explain a 
mystery?” 

@ We do not believe there is a God simply because some- 
thing zs, but chiefly because of what it is. 

My friend was right in thinking that existence is an 
impenetrable mystery. 

How God or anything else could exist without a be- 
ginning is bewildering to us; and how anything could 
commence to be when there was nothing to cause it, is 
even more confusing. 

That anything ever was at all becomes a crushing mys- 
tery if we dwell upon the thought for any length of 
time. 

However, regardless of whether it always was, or 
whether it began to be, we are absolutely certain that 
something is. 

Here, then, is our rational starting point: What is it? 
What is this all-inclusive something of which we are a 
part? In the consideration of this question, we may 
be able to “get somewhere.” 


1. Was Ever ANYTHING MaApDE Out or NoTHING? 
@ Probably not; it is easier to believe that everything 
always existed in some latent form. 

At least, it becomes more and more difficult for us to 


“WHO MADE GOD?” 19 


believe that we ourselves together with our surroundings 
were made from nothing. 

As far as observation goes, out of nothing comes 
nothing. Every new object is formed by the combining 
of elements that already exist; elements that probably 
always were latent in the great original, whatever that 
may have been. 

And after new sense objects have been formed of old 
elements, they can escape neither from the grasp of the 
original nor from the influence of one another. 

For better, for worse, all things hold together 1 in con- 
cord or in discord. 


2. Is THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE A PART OF GoD? 


@ Though Christians fully believe that God lives in na- 
ture and expresses Himself through it, yet, as a rule, 
they stoutly contend that nature is neither God nor any 
part of Him. 

They think that to preserve the personality of God, 
the separation between Him and nature must be clear-cut. 
@ Atheists naturally accept the view that nature is no 
part of God, and then conclude that the elemental forces 
have self-shaping and self-propelling tendencies that do 
away with all need of a God. 

It is more than probable, however, that believers and 
skeptics are alike mistaken when they think that the uni- 
versal energy, which is the substance of nature, is no 
part of an Almighty Being. 

The atheist makes a mistake in thinking that energy 


20 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


can get along without intelligence, and the Christian 
makes a mistake in thinking that intelligence can get along 
without cosmic energy. 

Why should the Christian think that the intelligence 
of the universe is God’s and that the energy of the uni- 
verse is not His? Where have we learned that God is 
wise, but weak? 

When we shear God of His stupendous cosmic energy, 
which takes shape in all visible forms, we divide Him 
into two parts; and call the invisible part God and the 
visible part matter. By this unfortunate division we 
unwittingly hide God behind Himself; we overlook the 
fact that God is foreground as well as background. 

I greatly appreciate the Christian’s fear of losing the 
personality of God; but the time has come when we must 
reexamine the relation between God and the universe if 
we are to preserve His personality—which is the same 
thing as preserving God Himself. 

While God, man, and nature are all vitally and organi- 
cally related, yet this does not take away from God and 
man their individual personalities. 

@ Since all objects of sense may be reduced to energy, 
my contention is that the energy of the universe is God’s 
very own; that His electronic energy is the warp of 
every material woof and the woof of every material 
warp. 

@ If this be so, then He lives His life before our very 
eyes as truly as in our souls; His intelligence is expressed 
in the flow of His energy in everything about us. 


“WHO MADE GOD?” 21 


Therefore, we see God in essentially the same way that 
we see man; we see the visible projections of Him with 
our senses. 

@ With this thought in mind, I have stopped writing 
for a few minutes to take a look at that which holds me 
in its friendly grasp. With such chemical, biological, and 
philosophical knowledge as I possess, I am simply look- 
ing to see how my surroundings will affect me. 

@ That which I see is indescribably wonderful. It in 
nowise resembles a senseless, impersonal, dead thing; 
but exhibits a beautiful and purposeful activity that out- 
runs all human imagination. 

It does not appear to be something that intelligence did 
trillions of years ago; it has every appearance of being 
something that infinite Wisdom is doing at this very 
moment that I am looking. 

God has more highly specialized instruments of ex- 
pression than any that are before me at this moment, to 
be sure, but if what I see is not God in action, it is most 
certainly the way an infinite God would act if He really 
existed. 

@ Right before me is an overwhelming display of wis- 
dom and energy; a display that is beyond all gifts of 
description. 

This is a thrilling experience! Why have I not re- 
peated it more frequently? 

@ Now, the magic of the scene is augmented and my 
sense of appreciation intensified by a little snow that has 
commenced to fall. How silent! How beautiful! Every 


22 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


flake is of an exquisite mathematical design, and no two 
alike! 

If I were a woman, I should certainly crochet a doily 
patterned after the magnified picture of a snowflake. 

You aged, angular apple trees, inwardly a wild whirl 
of molecules, and outwardly, silent as eternity! 

You smiling stone fence, winding around the orchard 
and over the hill, at once a dizzying dance of atoms and 
the symbol of peace and perpetual repose. 

@ Now the snow has ceased, the clouds have broken, 
and a new burst of glory is spread over all. 

You dazzling, fiery sun, you fleecy floating clouds, 
you boundless stellar worlds hiding behind the effulgent 
light of day; you beautiful everything; from that which 
is so vast that a light year must be made the unit of cal- 
culation, to that which is so small that it must be magni- 
fied a thousand times to be visible at all; why are you 
all so charming? why so eloquent of wisdom? 

Everywhere, everything, all, all is pulsating, swaying, 
flying, scattering blessings more numerous than snow- 
flakes. 

You dear world, why are you so appealing? so benefi- 
cent? so overpowering in your magnificent achievements ? 
@O God, the God whom our fathers have worshiped 
through the ages, are all these beautiful forms about me 
woven out of your own energy by the excellency of your 
wisdom and by the beauty of your love? 

Is your infinite energy taking the shape of worlds 
at the behest of your infinite, loving will? 


“WHO MADE GOD?” 23 


— 


Is the life that I see expressing itself in the myriad 
forms about me the same life as that which became 
human and articulate in Jesus? 

Lord of all being, thron’d afar, 
Thy glory flames from sun and star; 


Centre and soul of ev’ry sphere, 
Yet to each loving heart how near. 


@ That which is directly before me does not express 
less, but infinitely more than the noblest creeds and 
philosophies of men. 

As I sit here looking out upon the Great Enfolding 
Reality in whose boundless depths my parts once lay un- 
shaped and from which my heart and the heart of Jesus 
sprang, I see wisdom, love, and energy in perfect blend. 

But infinite wisdom, love, and energy are what God 
is; at least that is what we have been taught, and it is 
what I believe. 

I can not think that such exact and boundless intelli- 
gence can be unconscious of itself, nor that such achieve- 
ments as I behold can be wrought without a conscious, 
loving purpose. 

@ How wisdom, love, and energy are combined in per- 
sonal consciousness, or how they are at all, I do not know; 
but there they are. 

In a very small way, wisdom, love and energy are com- 
bined in my own self-conscious life. How, I do not 
know; but I know that they are. 

In that respect, I seem to be a child of the universe; 
I am a tiny universe within the great universe. 


24 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


We no longer postulate an absent God that we may be 
able to account for a universe that is no part of Him, but 
we think of the universe as the energy side of God 
Himself. 

As far as I can see, after the most rigid scrutiny, energy 
no more exists without spiritual qualities than spiritual 
qualities exist apart from energy. 


3. ARE THE ATTRIBUTES OF GoD IDENTIFIED WITH THE 
VISIBLE UNIVERSE? 


@ (1) God as Infinite Energy—lIf the energy that is 
woven into the patterns of the universe is not directed 
by wisdom, then it is foreign to God and not one of His 
attributes. 

As truly, if there is an Infinite Being, then infinite 
energy must be one of His characteristics; He could not 
be lacking in anything so universal and fundamental. 

@ As Christians, we have always been taught that God 
is just as limitless in Energy as He is in Wisdom, Love, 
and Will. 

Our great mistake, in my opinion, has been in thinking 
that God made the objects about us out of nothing; in- 
stead of thinking that He made them out of His own 
energy which is one of His attributes. Long ago the 
scientists reduced the objects of sense to atoms; and 
now they have burst the atom into electrons. 

And if they should some day succeed in disintegrating 
the electron, its parts would prove to be only a more 
subtle form of energy. 


“WHO MADE GOD?” 25 


But if God’s own energy is limitless, why should He 
need or how could He make any more energy than He 
now possesses ? 

Infinite energy is energy enough to constitute all the 
forms that we experience with our five senses. 

The world of sight and touch would not differ but 
appear just the same whether it were composed of God’s 
own energy or of some new energy that he made from 
nothing. 

@ By discovering the truer nature of the sense world, 
the scientists have put us in a fairer way to recognize 
God. 

For if, as I believe, all energy is God’s very own, then 
every discovery in dynamics is just so much more knowl- 
edge of Him; if all energy is truly His, then the objects 
of our senses confront us with the energy side of God 
Himself. 

Even our sense organs are composed of His energy in 
its most highly organized and sensitized form; not only 
the eye, but the speck of gray matter at the end of the 
optic nerve. 

That which is distinctively us is the self-communing 
and self-knowing spirit. 

The inspired writers have beautifully and truthfully 
proclaimed the Almightiness of God; but since they lived 
before the scientists discovered that nature was not a 
dualism of matter and energy but only organized energy, 
the prophets had no means of bringing their vision down 
to sense fact. 


26 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


My position is that the world of energy from electrons 

to human bodies and everything in between satisfyingly 
meets the requirements of a God who is exhaustless in 
energy; and that it shows nature to be a part of God in 
a deeper sense than our bodies are a part of us. 
@ (2) God as Infinite Wisdom—For uncountable ages 
before human beings made their appearance, this vast, 
space-filling energy was moving majestically toward our 
times and toward better times yet to be. 

Not only was wisdom present in the movement as a 
whole, but every inch of the mass was crammed with a 
richness and complexness of meaning. 

When I read scientific books, I am as much delighted 
and overwhelmed by the wisdom of nature as I am by 
its dynamics. Words are utterly inadequate to express 
my feelings in regard to either. 

According to these books, the movements of the in- 
finite energy are indescribably wise, beautiful, and awe- 
inspiring. 

In the deepest sense books of science are Wisdom 
Books. As I scan their pages, a Supreme Wisdom appears 
to be manifesting itself by doing in nature just what we 
do when we make our invisible minds outwardly visible 
and tangible through our bodies by the manipulation of 
nature’s forces. | 
@ There is, however, this difference: God shapes His own 
energy; while we, as dependent spirits, live in and use 
His and not our own. 

Such a difference is inevitable from the nature of the 


“WHO MADE GOD?” 27 


case; for except as God shares His energy with us, we 
appear to have none. 

The human mind and the tiny organism with which 
it is intimately connected, in comparison with the uni- 
versal mind and its space-filling energy, is like a single 
grain of sand compared to the universe. 

The grain of sand has no difficulty in finding the 
universe; it can not escape it. 

Man, however, often fails to recognize God simply 
because His wisdom is too great; and because His energy, 
by which He expresses His wisdom, is too vast. 

Until we come to recognize God as in communion 
with our spirits, and as a person speaking to us through 
Jesus and other human beings, He is too vast for our 
powers of comprehension. 

Since His forms of expression—outside of human 
lives—are necessarily as rich and vast as the universe, it 
is not strange that we should sometimes feel confused 
and bewildered in such a presence. 

A fellow human being doing one piece of work at a 
time we easily recognize, but if, like God, he were doing 
a trillion things at the same time, we should wonder 
whether he were doing any of them. 

It is often most helpful to look intently at some one 
thing that God is doing; and yet we know that a mind 
that could do but one thing at a time could by no possi- 
bility be God. 

@ In other words, we want a God, and then we refuse 
to let Him act like one. 


28 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


I often watch an organist with delight because he is 
working with both hands and both feet, reading both the 
music and the words, listening both to the organ and the 
choir, and judging of the effect of the whole performance 
upon the congregation. 

But if this organist were endowed with the capacity 
of God, he could play the universe. 

And that is just what God must do to be God. 

Though we have always called Him “The Infinite,” 
yet it now staggers us to think of God as being equal in 
wisdom and power to our newly discovered and rapidly 
expanding world. 

In the past, we tossed that word “infinite” about as 
if it were a penny; but through the discoveries of recent 
science, we are beginning to get some sense of its aston- 
ishing significance. 

A human being is so limited in mind and body that it 
is not difficult for us to know and place him as one definite 
being. 

Besides, man expresses himself through spoken words 
as well as through the movements and acts of his body. 

It is perfectly evident, however, that a Being who is 
as vast as the universe in wisdom and power could not 
adequately express Himself were He restricted to lips 
and hands. 

Much as God wishes to speak with lips and serve with 
hands, He can not do that until His children share with 
Him the bodies that were designed for their joint use. 


“WHO MADE GOD?” 29 


We need to know God in His vast universe, in Jesus, 
in the great prophets, and in the humble lives all about us. 

We need to hear God both in the thunder of the heavens 
and in the spoken words of men. 

The universe is God’s full organ, human lips and 

human lives are the solo stops. 
@ The evidence that the universe is directed by and under 
the control of intelligence is overwhelming; and that 
fact is no more wonderful than that anything whatsoever 
1s at all. 

How strange it sounds to hear it said that this great 
universe in which we live, and upon which we have be- 
stowed so much study, manifests a grade of intelligence 
below our own; especially when we court it, and strain 
every nerve to see what it has done in the past, what it 
is doing now, and what it promises to do next. 

The Wisdom that directs the universe acts just as I 
wish and believe God to act; just as God would act if 
he were to act at all. 

The discoveries, new and old, that have been made 
in the many allied sciences are so numerous that the most 
intelligent person has time to learn but a small portion 
of them. 

And these discoveries on the part of man are but a 
revelation of the Wisdom on the part of God that is 
expressing itself in terms of its own energy. 

@ True, these discoveries incidentally reveal more energy 
present than men used to be aware of, but principally 


30 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


a Wisdom that we ourselves never suspected was asso- 
ciated with the forces of which we were already aware. 

The wonders of radio and a thousand others strengthen 
our faith that nature as a whole is but the expression of 
the most wonderful intelligence conceivable; an intelli- 
gence that is quite equal to and on a par with the energy. 

Whenever we discover a new ray of energy, we are 
sure to discover how wisely also it acts and how nicely 
it dovetails in with the old and familiar forces. 

It is no more strange to credit this universe with Infinite 
Self-consciousness than it is to identify my mind with 
the mass of strange things of which my body is com- 
posed. 

The only reason for thinking that man has mind is 
the necessity for thinking that something commands this 
strange mass, called the body, and directs it into channels 
that are useful, beautiful, and beneficent. 

The same reasoning holds true of the universe. 

@ The best scientific volumes, those that contain the 
record of actual finds in nature, are new books added 
to God’s old Bible. 

They are Wisdom Books which reveal a Wisdom that 
promises to be limitless and in ways that we never sus- 
pected; books that truly supplement the old Bible that 
has done so much for the human race. 

We have long had the Old and New Testaments; but 
now we have broken the seals of God’s great nature 
Volume, and the few pages that men have thus far read 
show it to be another Testament from God; a Third Tes- 


“WHO MADE GOD?” 31 


tament that makes the verities of the Old and New Tes- 
taments appear a thousand times more wonderful than 
we had formerly realized. 

Mr. Edison is reported to have said recently that there 
was some sort of intelligence present in the atom. 

Certainly. Every atom is a minute combination of 
God’s energy deputized to express His Infinite Wisdom. 

The electrons dart and dance at the behest of the same 

purposeful Wisdom. 
@ (3) God as Boundless Love—The universe in its 
entirety betrays a pulse beat of benevolent intention at 
its heart as truly as it reveals energy and intelligence; 
it manifests a kindness beyond the measure of man’s 
mind. 

The urge of an Infinite Love seems to be fundamental ; 
so much so that Infinite Wisdom and Energy are clearly 
at its service. 

This is true notwithstanding the dark and discordaut 
factors of which we shall speak in a later chapter. 

The “Absolute” of many philosophies is endowed with 
no character, no worthy motive, no love; He is too frigid 
to be fully identified with the friendly universe, or with 
the kindly Jesus. 

When the race of men finally allow God to complete 
His universe, and with their help turn it into a home 
where dwell love and righteousness, then the terrible 
things in nature that cause such dismay will either dis- 
appear entirely, or else blend in a vaster harmony. 

Let love once fill the world and it will fill the world 


32 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


with a beauty that charms, and with blessings that en- 
noble all who receive them in gratitude. 

There is even now a world that draws us to itself and 
gives us fond delight of this kind; a world that fascinates 
the poets and all benevolent and seeing souls; and such a 
world is not cold and heartless. 

It is true that some respond to its allurements but 
little, yet sweet singers through all the ages have fallen 
down and worshiped before it as before a Divine Love that 
weaves its gauzes, hurls its spheres, paints its landscapes, 
rushes its rivers to the seas, tosses its mountains in air, 
shapes human forms and faces, kindles human hearts, 
and envelopes the beautiful and kindly earth with an 
atmosphere that Browning calls “The clear, dear breath 
of God who loveth us.” 

The Psalmists described the Infinite as the Good Shep- 
herd; as the Father who pities his little children when 
they are in trouble. 

No one of us men should fail to read often the hundred 

and fourth Psalm. 
@ Jesus, who gazed into the universe with the purest eyes 
and sanest mind of all, says the Father is like the hen 
that gathereth her brood under her wings; He is the 
Beneficent Artificer in shapes and colors, of the lily that 
surpasses the gorgeous raiment of Solomon; His is the 
watchful eye that does not let a sparrow fall to the 
ground unnoticed; He is the considerate One who does 
not overlook a hair of our heads, or one of the trillion 
electrons that go to make one of those hairs. 


“WHO MADE GOD?” 33 


How could it be otherwise if these and all objects are 
composed of nothing else but the forthgoings of God’s 
own energy? 

Could He use any of His energy carelessly or treat any 
of it unwisely? 

As Saint John says, “Beloved, let us love one another: 

for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten 
of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth 
not God; for God is love.” 
@ Passing by a thousand other things that reveal His 
love, we stop a moment to reflect on how music beats 
and throbs with the love of the Infinite Heart against our 
cold hearts to revive them; its waves of divine energy set 
in motion by organ and voices; a harmony of sounds 
that arouses devotion, awakens divine thoughts, and stim- 
ulates the will of man to push on and out and up into 
the great life of his Father who enfolds him in the 
“everlasting arms’ of His Wisdom and Love. 

Infinite Love put love into the heart of man, else man 
could not know the Great Heart. The fountain head 
of love is not in man. 

Paul saw things in right relation and proportion: “We 
love God because He first loved us.” 

As well might we try to believe that there is no energy 
beyond human strength as to try to believe there is no 
love beyond human love. 

Only those who live the life of love, know of the 
great streams of invading love that flow into the hearts 
of the Marys, Pauls, Saint Johns, and Savonarolas. 


34 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


What the love of the Father was to Jesus can only be 
estimated rightly by the enormous sacrifices which He 
made for the love of God and men: “Father forgive 
them, they know not what they do.” “It is finished; 
into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” 

The love that is greater and deeper than our own, 
does not hide Itself from men. 

If it be not visible, the explanation is that we have 

shut our eyes to it. 
@ (4) God as Infinite Will—A great purpose runs 
through the universe. “There is a Power not ourselves 
that works for righteousness.” “There is a Divinity that 
shapes our ends, rough hew them as we may.” 

Compare our present surroundings with the clouds of 
star dust; or with the first geological period; and then 
say whether as a shining wonder the power surpasses the 
purpose of the universe. 

Does not a movement so forward looking, so irre- 
sistible, so wise, and so beneficent denote the forthgoing 
of a Will? 

It is an exact duplicate of what we know as will 
among men. 

When men accomplish things that bear but the most 
distant resemblance to the great achievements of the uni- 
verse, we give them praise for having a will great enough 
to translate such beneficent thoughts into actual results. 

Any one of us could write a most fascinating volume 
on the purposeful achievements of the universe; thou- 
sands of such volumes have been written. 


“WHO MADE GOD?” 35 


It is about details concerning the wisdom and energy 
involved in stupendous accomplishments that scientific 
books principally inform us. 

Since no one can count the number of atoms in a grain 
of sand, we are appalled at the thought of how many 
atoms it takes to make the earth; and we are stupefied at 
the mere suggestion of the number of atoms in the com- 
position of the universe. 

Yet all these atoms play a part in the one great move- 
ment going forward toward something better, fuller, and 
yet more satisfying. 

@ “Where is this wonderful God?” As energy, He is 
present wherever there is an object of sense; wherever 
there is any kind of discernible phenomena. 

He is expressing Himself wherever there is anything 
bearing the marks of wisdom, love and purpose. 

Of course, Wisdom, Love, and Will can not be picked 
up in hands and examined with eyes; but expressions of 
them, something that bears their imprint, may actually 
lie in our hands and be enjoyed by us through our senses. 

In the same way, a painted canvas, a piece of chiseled 
marble, a human body in action, or a breath of air modu- 
lated into a word is precious to us; these things express 
thought and manifest love and purpose. 

How all this comes to be true of us, or of God, the 
Wisest person in the world does not know, but it will 
continue to seem perfectly natural and wholly to be ex- 
pected as long as we take life in a practical, common 
sense way. 


36 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


No one ever saw an object that was not marvelous in 
its composition, nor did he ever experience a thought that 
was dissevered from all objects. 

Nothing ever floats off and lives by itself in complete 
isolation; for, however individual it may otherwise be- 
come, it still remains rooted and grounded in the Great 
Original. 

Unity in diversity is a fact that everywhere confronts 
us. 

No matter how extremely much developed an indi- 
vidual becomes, he still draws his nourishment for body 
and mind from that in which he is planted; the very con- 
tinuance of his existence depends upon his remaining a 
part of the whole. 

However striking the contrast and wide the gulf be- 
tween individual things, they somehow hang together. 
@ The God who shaped some of His energy into the form 
that goes by the name of nerves among men, must be 
able to think without them Himself or else He never could 
have made them; but His offspring naturally depend 
upon some combination of His energies for their conscious 
awakening and support. 

Once we believed that God made a great hulk of stuff, 
endowed it with self-shaping and self-propelling power, 
and set it adrift from Himself where it could exist in 
complete independence. 

Unless God saw fit to intrude by some miraculous form 
of interference, we thought that the world managed to 
manage its Own movements. 


“WHO MADE GOD?” 37 


With our ampler knowledge of things, we now believe 
the visible, the organized world to be composed of the 
present and ever active energy of God; and that the forces 
about us which move so skillfully, so beautifully, and so 
benevolently do so because they are God expressing Him- 
self by means of His own energy. 

God shapes and crystallizes the ceaseless flow of His 
energy into a beautiful sense world, and then awakens 
minor intelligences to conscious life to inhabit such por- 
tions as are amply and suitably organized to be the seat 
of intelligence. 

And when these minor intelligences think His thoughts 

over and will His will over, then God gets expressed, not 
only through blooming flowers and rolling spheres as in 
the past, but in human language; and when He can be 
expressed in human speech, He can also be expressed 
in human deeds. 
@ When this comes to pass as it did in Jesus, and as it 
does feebly in our less obedient lives, then the climax 
and most precious manifestation of God’s personal life 
is realized: and He, the Adorable Father, who remains 
“Center and Soul of every sphere,’ at the same time, 
walks the shores of Galilee and sits in every friendly 
circle, the loving Heart of loving hearts. 

When the invisible mind of man comes to know and 
lock thought with the invisible Mind of the universe 
then, together, they commence shaping the universe into 
a kingdom of righteousness and peace and joy. 

@ While the God thus pictured is none too great for a 


38 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


God, yet He is too great to be completely fathomed by 
us who are not God. 

That does not mean, however, that we can not know 
and love Him; for many people do know and love God; 
to no small degree they love Him because He does exceed 
their comprehension. 

Especially can they know and love the God-filled and 
the God-revealing Jesus. 

In his best moments, John Burroughs was a really 
sweet and enchanting singer of the praises of God; but 
failed to know that he was because he was a victim of the 
crude and false conceptions of God that too generally 
prevail. 

Often a little readjustment of thought will set every- 
thing right. Paul knew a time when he knew much truth 
that seemed antagonistic to Jesus and His teachings; 
but one day, old truths slipped into new relations and, 
behold, his good old world became a better new 
world. 

Paul came to see that Jesus was not, as he had hastily 
assumed, destroying his thought world, but simply ful- 
filling it; making it full-orbed. 

@ Because the avenues of expression of God are neces- 
sarily so varied and vast, both in human life and in 
nature, I call upon all scientists who are studying His 
activities in the laboratories, and all poets who see His 
beauty and love in the great open; I call upon all who 
have knowledge and gifts, of any kind, to use them to 
proclaim in mighty chorus the Wisdom, Goodness, and 


“WHO MADE GOD?” 39 


Glory of the Almighty Father in whom all people and all 
things dwell. 

The heavens are God’s energy going forth to find ex- 
pression in rolling spheres ; beautiful as diamonds, terrible 
as infinite explosives and, from our safe distance, gentle 
as a mother’s love, useful as a quiet home, cheerful as a 
glowing hearth. 

Day unto day, God utters His speech; and night unto 
night, He reveals His knowledge. 

Flowers swaying in the breezes are as truly God waving 
to us, as the fluttering handkerchiefs of friends bidding 
us welcome or adieu. 

Everything, from the fiery gases of the heavens to 

fragile flowers and quivering nerves, is a form of His 
energy bearing the imprint of God’s wisdom and love. 
@ As I see it, escape from God is no more possible to us 
than escape from the tangible universe; but those who 
confine themselves almost exclusively to one aspect of 
God’s life incapacitate themselves for seeing Him really 
and truly. He must be seen in His manifoldness. 

Those who devote themselves to the mere mechanics 
of God’s cosmic energy, and those who simply use the 
energy of God at their disposal as a means of satisfying 
animal needs, become materialists. 

Those who exclusively occupy themselves with God as 
Absolute Mind, become rationalists. 

And those who think of God as nothing but Love, 
divide into fanatics of many varieties. 

Jesus, the ideal man, kept the Wisdom, Love, and 


40 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Energy of God in true balance; and thereby knew the 
true God. 

And Paul, His greatest Apostle, without being or be- 

coming a pantheist, could say that God was over all, in 
all, and through all. 
@ With Paul and Jesus I believe in the validity of my 
own self-communing soul; and the souls of my neighbors ; 
but this belief does not compel me to sever them from 
the enfolding energy of God. 

I do not feel forced to strip God of His cosmic energy 
as so many do in order to believe that when His energy 
is amply and suitably organized for their advent, real 
spiritual children of His wake to consciousness within 
God’s rich enfolding life; children who are capable of 
cooperating with their Father and with one another in 
building up an everlasting kingdom. 

@ God must bear some likeness both to men and to atoms 
because men and atoms both bear a likeness to Him. 

In one sense God is as near and knowable as our- 
selves; but in another the greatness of God, as I conceive 
of Him, is staggering to contemplate. 

Such Wisdom, such Love, such Energy, who can con- 
template unprostrate? 

Before the God of the stars; the God of stellar ether; 
the God of electrons; the God of all hearts; before such 
a God, I bow my knees, humble my soul, and reverently 
call him Father. 


CHART HRT 
HOW DID GOD MAKE THE HUMAN BODY? 


Is the evolutionary origin of man compatible 
with the noblest Christian sentiment? 


Which view of man’s origin is the better sup- 
ported by facts? 

May one still be a useful Christian if he does 
not believe in evolution? 


@ Once we believed that God created matter out of 
nothing ; that He then took this formless matter and in Six 
days moulded it into the universe. 

The first day, He made light; the second day, He made 
a canopy for the earth; the third day, He made grass, 
herbs, and trees; the fourth day, He made the sun, moon 
and stars; the fifth day, He made all kinds of water 
animals and birds; the sixth day, He made all land ani- 
mals and man. 

The first full-grown males and females of all vegetable 
and animal life were instantaneously made from the dust 
of the ground. 

The first hen was made before there was ever an egg. 
Horses were made before there ever were any living cells 
out of which to make them. 

41 


42 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


@ We no longer believe that God made matter out of 
nothing; nor do we believe that He shaped the universe 
without regard to His present laws of physics and chem- 
istry. 

@ Manifestly, God’s method of creation from the begin- 
ning was to combine electrons into atoms, atoms into 
molecules, and molecules into masses. 

@ It was a long journey from electrons to suns; and 
another vast span of time from suns to planets that were 
fit to support organic life; and still ages upon ages from 
single cell to the higher animals; and still other long ages 
before man appeared. 

Regardless of how species originated, the veritableness 
of the gradual advance from lower to higher forms, in- 
volving many millions of years, admits of no doubt; the 
record of this fact is written in stone. 

@ It is certain that God never made a canopy for the 
earth; and equally certain that vegetation was not pro- 
duced before the sun and stars. 

Trees were not made at the beginning of vegetable life ; 
and whales, cattle, horses, and men were not formed at 
the very beginning of animal life. 

All this has been clearly written for us in God’s great 
nature volume—the seals of which have now been broken. 

The Scriptures tell us Who made things, and with what 
loving and moral intent He made them. 

How He made them, is being read from nature’s great 
book. The suns, or stars, got their initial start in elec- 
trons, and living organisms theirs in living cells. 


HOW DID GOD MAKE THE BODY? 43 


After the earth was brought to its present size, it then 
became coated over with drift and sediment during a long 
geological period known as the Azoic age; and still there 
was no life. 

Then followed the Proterozoic age with its millions of 
years during which further layers of rock were laid upon 
the face of the globe by deformation, erosion, and sedi- 
mentation. 

During this second unimaginably long age, the only re- 
maining evidences of life are the deposits of carbonates, 
and the trails made by some crawling creatures. 

In the Cambrian age which followed, fossils of various 
species appear in great numbers. 

Not, however, until the next geological period, the 
Ordovician, did the lower vertebrates appear. 

During this period great portions of the earth’s surface 
were submerged, and these shallow waters afforded a 
great opportunity for the rapid development of life. | 

And yet, a dozen geological periods, wonderful in their 
diversity, intervene between then and the present time; a 
dozen volumes in rock, piled one upon the other, that 
preserve the record of a progressive creation. 

@ These stone books, every one of which was ages in the 
making, clearly show that “fishes preceded amphibians ; 
amphibians preceded reptiles, and reptiles preceded birds.” 

The further one goes in all lines of knowledge the 
more strikingly it appears that the end was latent in the 
beginning, and that the present is always “‘the child of 
the past and the parent of the future.” 


44 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Nothing is known anywhere, in any field, that contra- 
dicts evolution; and everything loudly suggests it and in 
many ways beautifully illustrates it. 

So soundly is this true that the overwhelming majority 
of scholars find their minds are incapable of believing 
anything else. As far as I know, no scholar doubts the 
general facts of evolution. 


1. Is THE EVOLUTIONARY ORIGIN OF MAN COMPATIBLE 
WITH THE NOBLEST CHRISTIAN SENTIMENT? 


@ We shall consider the sentimental aspects of the sub- 
ject first because sentiment is of first importance. 

Require us to live in a world that does not arouse noble 
sentiment, and religion vanishes. 

If God cannot win our hearts while He enlightens our 
minds, then He can not hold our allegiance. 

A Christian evolutionist not only believes that God 
made man of the dust of the ground, but he believes that 
He so made every living creature; he does not think of 
God as apart from nature, but thinks of Him as at work 
in every atom. 

As to God’s having made man of dust, that admits of 
no doubt; because all vegetable and animal life comes 
from dust, eats dust, and returns to dust. 

The Christian evolutionist also believes that God made 
the human spirit in His own image; in the image of Him- 
self who is a spirit. 

The Christian evolutionist is very insistent on Father- 
hood and Sonship. 


HOW DID GOD MAKE THE BODY? 45 


And as regards the human body, he not only thinks 
of it as a marvelous revelation of God’s wisdom and love, 
but believes that every atom in the universe, whether it 
be in the sun, in the body of a serpent, or in the body of 
a man, is a revelation of God. 

In comparison with a human body, which is a little 
universe in itself, and especially in comparison with a 
body endowed with an intelligent and loving soul, the 
atom is a very poor picture of God. 

Nevertheless, the atom as an expression of God’s crea- 
tive wisdom and power is no mean representation in itself 
of Him. 

And in speaking thus of the atom, I do not mean the 
atoms in the body of some saint, but every atom in this 
universe, regardless of what it is in. 

@ Since all nature from top to bottom is God’s own 
energy moving at the behest of His gracious wisdom, 
therefore all nature is God-revealing. 

In spite of the fact that some things in nature are 
offensive to the five senses, as they should be, yet viewed 
from a chemical and biological point of view everything 
is beautiful, clean, and divine. 

In wrong relations everything is harmful; but that only 
means that we must learn to cooperate with our Father 
in the great work of living and in the beautiful task of 
keeping the house, His and ours, in order. 

The evolutionist does not believe in a vile world, save 
as it is made vile by the wickedness of man; he believes 
that God either created everything or He created nothing. 


46 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Since everything lives and moves and has its being in 
God, it is all very intimately related to Him, and there- 
fore very closely related to us. 

If God is not ashamed of His relation to nature, which 
includes all animals, neither should we be ashamed of 
our relation. 

If a human body is kept clean, well dressed, and dedi- 
cated to noble works, it offers a striking contrast to the 
condition into which a filthy, wicked man gets his body, 
or even with the body of the noblest of animals; that is, 
the contrast is striking from the social point of view; 
but in the laboratory and on the dissecting table, they 
are all wonderfully alike. 

A single-cell animal is much the same as any one of the 
trillion cells that goes into the makeup of a human body. 

All animal life feeds and breeds and strives and dies 
in much the same way; even microscopic life acts like 
man in some ways; animals of a higher order show a 
stronger likeness in form and conduct; but only God is 
like man at his moral and personal pinnacle. 

@ In some quarters more or less sentimental aversion to 
the idea of evolution lingers on. 

There are still a good many people who feel that such 
a belief dishonors man, and possibly that it eliminates 
God as Creator. 

If such were the truth, the situation would be very 
serious indeed. 

An ever increasing number of other people, however, 
feel exactly the opposite. 


HOW DID GOD MAKE THE BODY? 47 


Neither of these parties can be changed by persecution 
and besides, persecution is not Christian. 

What the world needs is light and not fight. 

@I first came to believe in evolution for sentimental 
reasons. Any other method of producing the human 
body, of which I could conceive, appeared distasteful to 
me. 

This change came to me forty years ago during a ses- 
sion of the Geology class. 

I forgot the class around me and tried to conceive of 
God making a full-sized man directly from the dust with- 
out following His common biological method. 

How did He assemble the dust? 

I decided that He did not gather the dust with hands 
and mould it into a human form. 

Did He catapult the dust together as by magic? That 
too seemed utterly improbable. 

Did He animate the requisite amount of earth and 
cause it to rise up and walk off as a living man? 

Did He turn clay in the lump directly into bone, tissue, 
vital organs, and brain? 

I did not limit His power, but putting no limits on 
His power, something within me said that He never did 
it that way. 

Did God either literally or figuratively blow into the 
mouth of a clay man in order to enable him to become 
a living soul? 

The more I meditated upon the idea, the less real and 
the more distasteful it all appeared. 


48 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


That was not the way the Almighty worked. At any 
rate, that thought lost all grip on my mind. 

Then I asked myself the question, Why do we object 
to evolution? 

Is it because animal flesh is unclean? But animal flesh 
is clean enough to eat; and to whatever extent we use 
animal food, to that degree our own bodies are made up 
of elements transmuted from animal flesh. 

Do we object to evolution because man would on this 
theory begin too low down mentally and morally? 

But I could see that no physical organism would be 
entitled to be called man before it became a fit instrument 
for a soul; and the moment it became possessed of a soul, 
it would cease to be an animal. 

An animal with a soul is man. 

@ Would it not be better then, to think that we began 
with bodies that were developed from clean, alert, and 
well-disciplined animals; from ancestors with senses that 
had all been trained by long use under severe discipline, 
than to begin so innocently and then before we got fairly 
started fall into savagery? 

If our ancestors without a self-conscious soul knew 
all the ways of the jungle, and managed to survive in 
the midst of cunning and fierce enemies, does not that 
situation throw all the advantage on the side of evolution? 

All this chatter raised about the monkeys that we 
know and so dislike, is wide of the mark. 

They have never come within a million leagues of being 
fit instruments for a soul. 


HOW DID GOD MAKE THE BODY? 49 


A soul could not be awakened in anything so crude and 
so lacking in the needed qualifications. 

They should not disgust us with our noble physical 
ancestors, but sharply warn and deter us from sinking 
down and degenerating into monkeys like themselves. 

If the noble animals that later became endowed with 
souls could degenerate as rapidly as some human beings 
do, then those that did not push on to better things might 
easily have become jabbering monkeys condemned to an 
ever narrowing sphere; especially since those that became 
men pushed forward to subdue and possess the earth. 

Our highly bred dog is not in the least disagreeable; 
he is adorable. 

And if he could enter into all our experiences, we should 
know that he was a brother in spite of the fact that he 
is a quadruped. 

Yet with all his adorableness, the possibility of his ever 
becoming an equal of man is negligible. 

@ Let us dismiss our monkeys, then, as we do some of 
our second and third cousins whom we dislike. 

However much or little we may resemble apes, we are 
not their kinsmen. 

To find an ancestor common to us both, the most aris- 
tocratic ape now living would need to trace his ancestors 
back a million years, and then we should need to trace 
ours back a million years. 

And when we recall that there is only six per cent of 
blood relationship between us and our great-great-grana- 
parents, we need not feel very near to the apes. 


50 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


If I were a direct descendant of King Swain, in the 
tenth century, there would be but one five-millionths of 
one per cent of blood relationship between us. 

There is no question but that we and the most de- 
graded aborigines of Australia and Africa sprang from 
the same source; but we are blood relations no longer of 
those distant ancestors, nor of the present-day aborigines 
who are as far removed from the common original source 
as are we. 

The degraded peoples of the earth at the present time 
are probably much inferior to their ancestors of twenty 
thousand years ago. 

As the progressive ancestors of some peoples were more 

noble and attractive than their decadent posterity, so the 
progressive primates that became men were more noble 
and attractive than such of their posterity as have turned 
decadent. 
@ But I have wandered a bit from the Geology class. 
After dismissing the disagreeable thought of God’s hav- 
ing animated earth en masse, I tried to visualize His usual 
method according to science of assembling the elements 
for every living thing; and for the first time, I saw into 
the beauty, the wonder, the cleanliness of all creation; I 
saw the miracle involved in the weaving of external ele- 
ments into sensitive, living tissue by means of a little 
cell. 

This was worthy of God; and this was the only way 
He had ever been known to work. 


HOW DID GOD MAKE THE BODY? 51 


Immediately, the fitness, the divineness, the glory of 
it all dawned upon me, and I opened my eyes upon the 
beautiful tree of life; the genealogical tree, whose stalk 
and branches, and branches of branches, had all sprung 
out of the same root. 

The top of that genealogical tree, the organism that 
was right in form, right in brain structure, right in the 
number and arrangement of the cells composing it; the 
front rank animal, the crown and glory of the entire 
organic kingdom—that, and that alone, was fitted to be 
endowed with a soul and made a son of God. 

Here at last was an inner temple, in which the Father 

Himself would delight to dwell in a new intimacy, a 
worthy instrument through which Father and son could 
carry on together the great work of transforming the 
world into a heavenly home. 
@ That beautiful vision has never left me; in comparison 
with it, everything else seems hateful; sentimentally, | 
am a confirmed evolutionist, and have been for forty 
years. 

Before I could believe in lump creation, I should have 
to see some of it; a thing which I never expect to do. 

If I should see some earth turn into a horse or a man, 
the wonder of it would prostrate me. 

I really enjoy believing that in assembling the mate- 
rials for the first men and women, God used the beautiful 
method which He still employs in assembling our dust; 
the method of conception and birth. 


52 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Aversion to this method, as it seems to me, grows out 
of false views of God and low conceptions of the sacred- 
ness of all His works. 

To the physicist, chemist, and biologist, nature 1s some- 

thing very different from what it appears to be to the 
unenlightened mind. 
@ When we know nature only with our senses, senses 
benighted rather than enlightened, we must often be dis- 
tressed, even nauseated, where we might be delighted if 
only we had a little better understanding. 

To many educated minds chemical forces, organized 
and unorganized, have become almost as beautiful them- 
selves as the Creative Mind that wills them. 

A beautiful God could not perform vulgar deeds as He 
must have done if any part of nature is in itself vile. 

Such a thought plunges us into religious confusion 
at the very start. 

If God is beautiful and good, so are all His works if 
each thing is kept in its proper place and viewed from 
the standpoint of the divine intent. 

It should never be forgotten that those things which 
we call the lowest and meanest still have their being in 
God. 

While all nature is beautiful in itself, that does not 
alter but emphasizes the fact that our safety and sanity 
require that we learn to know the meaning and proper 
use of things and how to keep each thing in its right 
place. 

In some circumstances, vile men should be regarded 


HOW DID GOD MAKE THE BODY? 53 


with loathing and fear; in others, quite otherwise. Poison 
when so administered as to save the life of your child 
is a beautiful thing; and a horrible thing when your 
child mistakes it for food. 

My instinctive aversion to snakes makes it difficult for 
me to run across the most beautiful and harmless serpent 
without killing it; for though I am ready to admit the 
litheness of its wonderful mechanism, yet my heel wants 
to bruise its head. 

I know, too, that reptiles have served a large purpose 
in the economy of nature; but I cannot rid myself of 
the remembrance that they still serve among other uses 
as our best symbol of subtle temptation and cunning evil. 

The cooked flesh of a snake—and I have seen it—would 
be most appetizing to look at if I did not know what 
it was. 

When an organism has become sufficiently refined and 
complex to serve as the instrument of a spirit, it is further 
beautified and ennobled in a thousand ways in the course 
of that service under the control of the spirit. 

This is abundantly illustrated by the race of men. 

What is more beautiful than a human body that is 
dominated by a Christian spirit? 

Or what is more repulsive than a vile, filthy, and de- 
graded human body? 

Clean, or unclean, is a relative term. 

A large portion of the human family today make very 
repulsive associates in comparison with the company of 
a Christian gentleman. 


54 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


If one doubts this, let him work in our slums, or in 
mission fields among the lowest aborigines. 


2. Wuicu View oF MAN’s ORIGIN Is THE BETTER 
SUPPORTED BY FACTS? 


@ That there are no facts which suggest a miraculous 
origin for man, I will not afirm; but I can fearlessly say 
that I know of none. 

Doubtless the majority of people are ready to admit 
that they have never investigated the subject. 

Those who believe in the miraculous origin of man 
usually do so for two reasons: First, they are sentimen- 
tally inclined to that view. Second, they think that the 
Bible teaches it. 

As to the sentimental reason, I have said enough. 

Regarding the Bible, all that can be said is that the 
Scriptures merely relate that God made man of the dust 
of the ground without giving any information as to how 
He did it. | 

Beyond doubt, the Biblical writers thought that God 
made man and everything else, to begin with, in a miracu- 
lous manner ; but they did not say so. 

They were neither for evolution nor against it, because 
they had never heard or thought of such a thing. 

Many who now believe in evolution were once senti- 
mentally averse to it; but their sentiments have undergone 
a radical change because of their better inside knowledge 
of nature. 

The greatest difficulty in dealing with this subject lies 


HOW DID GOD MAKE THE BODY? 55 


in the fact that the majority of people look upon nature 
almost exclusively from the outside. 

This is a great pity; for when nature is seen from both 
the outside and the inside, heaven itself can not be more 
wonderful. 

@ If, however, the origin of man is not absolutely known, 
then why take sides? Why not drop the subject entirely ? 

That sounds much easier to do than it really is. 

To live worthily—one might add to live at all—we 
are compelled to study the world in which we live and of 
which we are a part. 

And when we do this, we learn millions of new and 
startling facts about the world that no one can deny or 
doubt. 

Now it so happens that when these very numerous new 
facts touch the universe at a sufficient number of points, 
and all head in the same direction, they become so heavily 
charged with meaning that faith, like the electric spark, 
can no longer be held back. 

That is just what has happened in connection with this 
subject of man’s origin. 

Thousands of devoted Christian men and women have 
come into possession of such an array of facts upon it, 
pointing the same way, that they are helpless against the 
swift-flowing currents of so much positive knowledge. 

q All streams of knowledge now flow in the direction 
of evolution. 

Men have safely sailed all around the subject of man’s 
origin; they have climbed above it; they have digged be- 


56 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


neath it; they have done everything but pick up the fossil 
that puts the last plank in the bridge between the highest 
extinct animals and man; they may even have done that; 
some think they have. 

But the testimony of every science so dovetails into 
that of every other science on the subject of man’s origin, 
all the sciences so coalesce with history, and science and 
history make so complete a story that its status today is 
similar to that of a narrative with but one word 
missing. 

Sometimes I get letters from friends that contain one 
or two words that I never positively make out, yet I am 
positively sure that I get all that is essential in their 
message. 

Plenty of men are living today in the light cast by all 
this knowledge of an evolutionary world; they are feeling 
its grip; they are entering its open doors; they are actually 
helping to coordinate the evolutionary forces; and they 
are reaping fruits worthy of their toil. 

@ That, putting it to the test of practice, in short, is the 
reason why they believe in evolution. 

By the prevalence and universality of the evidence for 
the evolutionary method, they are convinced that it is 
divine, that it is a great revelation from God. 

Now that it has become their deepest faith, like true 
Christians, they can but proclaim it. 

Evolutionists seldom refer to the origin of man be- 
cause that is but one incident in the great evolutionary 
drama of the universe. 


HOW DID GOD MAKE THE BODY? 57 


The subject might well be dropped as one of no great 
consequence, if the origin of man were the whole of 
evolution. 

However, the facts all support a very different conclu- 
sion ; even if it could be positively known that God created 
one man and one woman in a miraculous way, that act 
would only mean that He deviated from His evolutionary 
method but for a moment. 

If that were true, we should still have to recognize evo- 
lution as God’s common method of action and regard 
the origin of the human species as a single exception to 
the rule. 

It is worthy of mention that no one has ever seen any- 
thing but evolution. 

God has never been caught in a single act of creation 
by any other method. 

Besides, all creation is by the fiat of God; whether it 
springs suddenly from a clod or slowly from the building 
up of cells, it comes to pass only because God says “let 
it be’ and it is so. 

Even revolution, of the most destructive kind, is only 
rapid evolution. 

The human fetus is an example of both types. It 
evolves very slowly for the first month or two and then 
advances by leaps and bounds. 

Nothing, indeed, evolves with absolute, even regularity ; 
neither a stalk of corn nor a boy. 

Entirely aside from the subject of human origin, the 
evolutionist is a new type of man. He lives in a new 


58 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


world, he speaks with a new accent, what he says is dif- 
ferent; regardless of what his subject of discourse may 
be. 

He is listened to as one who makes old subjects new. 

He is not trying to be different, he is different; he is a 
new man in a new world. 
q As already stated, I first believed in evolution for sen- 
timental reasons; because, as the method of creation, it 
was more pleasing to me and, as I thought, more worthy 
of God. 

But when I looked for the rational evidences in support 
of my sentimental preference, my surprise was even 
greater than my satisfaction. 

I never expected to find the one-hundredth part of that 
which I did find in confirmation of the evolutionary 
hypothesis. 

Of course, I knew that human beings were propagated 
after the manner of animals, but not having studied em- 
bryology, it was a startling surprise for me to find that 
man, chicken, fish, or whatever else, has its life begin in 
the same way, as a single fertilized cell. 

And it was even a greater surprise to learn that no one 
can tell the difference between a human embryo and that 
of any other mammal until it has run one ninth or more 
of its course. 

At first the human embryo is indistinguishable; for its 
shape or form at the start is not that of a miniature human 
being. 

It presents the appearance successively of a worm, a 


HOW DID GOD MAKE THE BODY? 59 


fish, a reptile; even when the hands begin to appear as 
little buds it shows no signs of legs. 

At the third week, its bronchial clefts resemble the gill 
slits of a fish. 

The different stages through which the head evolves, 
the first appearance of the optic vesicle, the beginning of 
lungs, and all the rest of the birth story constitute a most 
astounding exhibit of evolution. 

If human life began, as I used to suppose it did, as a 
very tiny human form, my reactions would have been 
different; but it bears no resemblance to a human being. 

The long-drawn-out story of organic evolution which 
took the lengthy geological periods to write originally, 
here gets rewritten on one small page. 

However the first human beings were formed, all others 

have been evolved; they have not simply grown, they have 
truly evolved, beginning at the lowest form and leaving 
them all behind one by one. 
@ Notwithstanding the great differences in appearance be- 
tween men and the higher animals, they have all come 
up over the same evolution life route, the greater part of 
the distance together. 

All front legs of animals are really arms, and the hind 
legs, when the flesh is exposed, are seen to be like the 
legs of a man. 

When I was a boy, I often wondered why the knees 
on the hind legs of animals pointed backward while man’s 
knees point forward. 

I did not realize that an animal’s thigh bones were im- 


60 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


bedded in flesh which is called the ham; that their knees 
were at their flanks and that what I thought was the 
knee was originally the heel. 

While currying horses, as a boy, I never got over won- 
dering why they had those ugly and inconvenient scabs 
on their legs. 

When I learned the evolution life story of a horse, the 
mystery was gone; they were rudiments of toes possessed 
by the horse when he walked on his heels as well as 
his toes. 

When I learned that the hock was the original heel I no 
longer asked why the horse’s knees turned backward; my 
own heels stuck out behind when I stood on my toes. 

Then I used to wonder what was happening to the 
horse’s eye when he shot a curtain across the eyeball two 
or three times in rapid succession; but my mind was re- 
lieved when I learned that it was a third eyelid, and that 
our human ancestors of long ago had the same. 

Today, we have but the rudiment of a third eyelid, 
which accounts for the lump in the corner of the eye that 
once puzzled me. 

Since we have had hands with which to remove dust 
from our eyes, we have allowed our third eyelid to 
degenerate through disuse into a mere vestige of its for- 
mer self. 

It was a great surprise to me, that further confirmed 
the theory of evolution, when I learned that the higher 
animals as well as ourselves, have several hundreds of 


HOW DID GOD MAKE THE BODY? 61 


these worthless remnants in our bodies; vestiges of or- 
gans that were fully developed and useful to our animal 
ancestors. 

The vermiform appendix is one of the most trouble- 
some and, therefore, best known of the useless left-overs 
in our bodies to remind us whence our bodies came. What 
you find is all just like this, whichever way you turn. 
@ If you study geology, there evolution confronts you; 
you can not go into the field of physiology, with all its 
branches, without evolution forcing itself upon your at- 
tention. 

Whether you study fossils, or antiquities, or the ancient 
history of man, everything points in this one direction. 

And when one has looked into twenty or thirty sciences 
that dovetail and overlap, if he is at all like the average 
person, he is helpless to comply when asked to believe in 
anything but evolution. 

Neither is evolution as the law of growth confined to 
the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms; it is the 
law of language growth, the law of art growth, the law 
of music growth, the law of love growth, the law of 
growth everywhere. 

As far as knowledge and observation go, the present 
is always “the child of the past and the parent of the 
future.” 

If there is any doubt about it, the burden of proof 
rests with those who deny evolution; for no evidence of 
anything else has ever been seen by anyone. 


62 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


“Why are not apes still becoming men?” It might 
better be asked, why are not Hottentots, who are men, 
becoming like truly civilized Americans. 

In either case, the intervening laps of growth are abso- 
lutely impossible of negotiation without a radical change 
of present environment. 

The Hottentots are like blind fishes that live in dark 
caves. 

There is nothing in the Hottentot’s present environ- 

ment that will ever lead him to advance without help from 
the civilized world. 
@ Today the earth is so thoroughly preémpted by the 
highly developed nations that even the inferior races of 
men stand a poor show of obtaining the eons of time re- 
quired for advanced growth. 

Man is making it increasingly difficult for animals of 
all kinds to survive in the natural state. 

No such biological changes are likely to take place as 
occurred during those long geological periods of the past 
because the very conditions that made the changes pos- 
sible are gone. 

In the geological period in which we are living, the 
earth’s changes are insignificant in comparison with those 
of the past. 

Every form of life has been driven to dwell in a rela- 
tively fixed environment to which it has become adjusted 
and where for the most part it must remain. 

Many species have become extinct because their one- 
time favorable environment is gone; and many primitive 


HOW DID GOD MAKE THE BODY? 63 


forms which persist seem condemned to live forever un- 
changed in their original environment. 

q If we are not to have great fresh geological upheavals, 
such as occurred millions of years ago, the lower forms 
of life are never likely to escape from their present en- 
vironment. 

For example, unless the seas are shunted into new 
basins and their temperature changes, what chance is there 
longer for the descendants of fishes to become land ani- 
mals? 

Or while man holds sway, what chance is there for 
great beasts to take possession again of the earth? 

In the days that great bulky creatures ruled the earth, 
they drove the lesser animals to new modes of life and 
to new lines of development. 

But man now drives everything hither and yon 
Nothing can survive long that man dooms to destruction. 

The face of the American prairie has been swept desert 
clear of animals in my lifetime and it will be the turn 
of the African jungle next. Man is lord of the earth. 

In the long ages of the past, amid catastrophic changes, 
many types of animals worked to prepare the way and 
make the earth fit for man. 

And man still needs the service of a variety of animals 
ranging from microscopic to the noblest of creatures. 

Many of these he must cultivate with the greatest care 
for his own preservation. 

Other still existing animals have done their work, and 
may be left to perish, or even made to perish. 


64 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


It took limitless ages for the elements and the animals 
which worked together to bring about the present condi- 
tions. 

And when God had thus prepared the earth, and living 
organisms had climbed from single-cell creatures to the 
highest animals known, it was only necessary for nature 
to evolve one step further to produce a fit temple for a 
soul. 

Having reached in man the high step on the physical 
stair required for the advent of soul, why should God 
be interested to do the same thing over again? 

Since the arrival of Man, evolution has transferred its 
principal attention to the human mind, where it continues 
on a higher plane. 

True, changes are still occurring all along the physical 
line as far as the more circumscribed modern environ- 
ments will permit; but the scene of the greatest evolu- 
tionary changes that can now take place is the realm of 
mind and morals, and in the regions of the manipulation 
of the forces of nature by man. 

Man’s is the guiding hand. He may control the ele- 
ments, he may create artificial environments, he may 
greatly modify the vegetable and animal kingdoms; he 
may do all this in the interest of civilization; henceforth, 
back of all great developments are to be the mind and 
character of man. 

If the future course of this spiritual kind of evolu- 
tion be governed by keen intelligence and moral in- 


HOW DID GOD MAKE THE BODY? 65 


sight, the heights to which man may attain are inconceiv- 
able. 

But if he should prove unfit for this noble task; if he 
slips into the ways of ease and moral lassitude—should 
he lose his vision, forget his God and despise his brother, 
then the very forces of evolution will turn hostile and 
dash him on the rocks as a thing unfit. 

By the laws of evolution God has produced a livable 
world for men, and if His children will work with Him, 
by the same laws they may shape the universe into an 
abode of infinite beauty and utility. 


3. May One Stitt Be a UseFuL CHRISTIAN IF HE 
Dots Not BELIEVE IN EvoLurTIon? 


@ Yes, he may be a very useful Christian; but not as 
useful, in my opinion, as if he were both a consecrated 
man and an intelligent evolutionist. 

One who does not believe in evolution may be more 
useful temporarily among those who are not ready for it; 
but much less useful among those who are ready. 

The most conspicuously useful men and women whom 
I know, have been evolutionists all their lives. 

@ The evolutionist is equipped to present the gospel in 
a larger way and with a greater compelling force; that 
is, if he be really minded to preach the gospel. 

Under the light of new knowledge he has a much more 
impressive version of the gospel to preach. 

Things have gone so far, and so many of the people 


66 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


of this generation have come to the parting of the ways, 
that no minister with a college education can morally 
justify his attitude if he fails to read all the best litera- 
ture on the modern outlook. 

Yet many ministers have scarcely a book that gives 
them the larger view of life and duty in their libraries. 

This is morally wrong for teachers and leaders of the 
people. 

Most of those who attack the views of modern Chris- 
tian men misrepresent them at every point. 

For one, I would willingly surrender life sooner than 
believe that which a few critics accuse me of believing. 

No man has a right to attack anything until he knows 
exactly what it is that he attacks. I have heard the most 
violent denunciations of Darwin by men who admit that 
they never read his “Origin of Species.” 

If a fully enlightened man honestly disbelieves in the 
modern presentation of the gospel, I wish him to say 
so; but if his utterances reveal the fact that he is missing 
the point, his attitude becomes immoral. 

@ Like many ministers whom I know, I gladly exercise 
all the love and good will toward the conservative man 
that I wish him to accord me. 

I know some conservative men whose religious char- 
acter is infinitely superior to that of some progressive 
thinkers. 

No views for or against can safely be substituted for 
a deeply religious life. 

Regardless of how we classify ourselves, it is a dis- 


HOW DID GOD MAKE THE BODY? 67 


qualification for much service, in this scientific age, to 
forget that all nature is of God; and it is a disastrous 
course for any minister to remain ignorant of those truths 
which are the common possession of millions of intelli- 
gent laymen. 

The leaven of the gospel must be kneaded into the 
whole lump; and the lump is a thousand times bigger 
than we thought when I was a boy. 

Many an intelligent layman goes to church and comes 
away saying, “The minister did not leaven my bread with 
the gospel; I guess the gospel does not blend with the 
facts of life as I know them.” 

Many of us when we attend a conservative, even a 
reactionary, church, can appreciate the gospel which is 
there mixed up with fifty things that we know are not 
true; but many more can not. 

Yet there is little good in anyone’s going to church 
unless the witness of the inner light assures him of God’s 
presence in the service. 


CHAPTER III 


IS THE METHOD OF HUMAN PROPAGATION 
IDEAL? 


Is the method of human reproduction a 
method becoming to the divine wisdom? 


Would it not be better if the sex impulse did 
not appear before the age of fitness for 
marriage? 

Are sex conditions at the present time a 
ground for optimism, or pessimism? 


@ Can such a prolific cause of sin and sorrow as human 
propagation through sex be ascribed to God? 

Would not an all-wise God have thought of a better 
way? 

Disagreeable as it was, at first, to hear that man prob- 
ably stands at the top of an ascending line of animal an- 
cestors, how much more shocking it was to learn that 
human beings were propagated after the manner of 
animals. 

As a small lad, my father was away much of the time, 
and I had everything to do with animals on the farm. I 
looked after the breeding of them and, as sometimes 

68 


HUMAN PROPAGATION 69 


became necessary, assisted them in giving birth to their 
young. 

So when I learned that everything pertaining to the 
propagation of animals was equally true of human be- 
ings, it was almost more at first than I could bear. 

It sounded like a slanderous lie against God and my 
parents. I refused to believe the damnable heresy. 

Finally, however, I was convinced of its truth by a 
boy who had much more evidence than reverence. Prob- 
ably few children ever had this information conveyed to 
them under such appalling circumstances or in such a 
brutal manner. 

If my parents could have suspected what a shocking 
experience I was to encounter, they never could have kept 
me in ignorance. 

Yet, whatever be the way that the information comes 
to us, we all have to surrender our first belief that God 
miraculously creates babies; how it may affect us can in 
nowise alter the facts. 

@ Right education wisely undertakes to improve human 
sentiment by giving more facts, or by changing the point 
of view. 

That change has taken place in me on this subject. 
My mother now seems inexpressibly dear to me for giv- 
ing me birth in the manner she did, in view of all her 
beautiful thoughts that accompanied the beginning of my 
body. 

A young wife wrote her parents from a distant land 
before her first baby came, that she used to pity women 


70 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


in her condition; but that now, in her supreme happiness, 
she realized that to escape the beautiful prelude of nine 
months and still get her baby, “Would be like getting 
married before one had a lover.’”’ How justly proud her 
parents were of such a daughter. 

@ When they first learn the truth about human propa- 
gation, many children are greatly disturbed. 

It seems so contrary to the modesty that has been care- 
fully drilled into them; and in the second place, it ap- 
pears dreadful because their ignorance is so complete in 
regard to the beautiful physical provisions that are made 
for the unborn child. 

Though some wise parents have learned how to impart 
this information in a way that does not upset their chil- 
dren, yet I do not know that it can be done generally 
without some considerable disturbance to the mind of a 
child, because many new factors must enter the life of 
growing boys and girls before they can understand rea- 
sonably well the beauty and divine wisdom of creating 
children through the agency of parents. 

The information that children are born, and not made 
in heaven, will give less shock if told to children when 
they are quite young rather than when they are just a bit 
older. And a wise and loving mother often does it in a 
way that makes her seem doubly dear to her child. 

Moreover, that much information may be imparted 
long before it is safe for the child to know what part 
the father has in this creation. When it comes to that 


HUMAN PROPAGATION 71 


information, the most difficult of all to reveal, Mary 
Wood-Allen has given some excellent suggestions in her 
little booklet, ‘““Almost a Man.” 


1. Is THe METHOD oF HUMAN REPRODUCTION 
BECOMING TO THE DIVINE WispoM? 


@ Whether it is or not, we must admit that at the very 
threshold of human existence, it brings us face to face 
with some of the most stupendous facts of life. Here is 
something that affects society and religion for better or 
worse in a thousand ways. 

Occasionally I meet some woman who is fierce in her 
opposition to the method of human propagation; as fierce 
as any of the opponents of evolution whom I have met 
in their opposition to the genealogy of mankind accord- 
ing to modern science. 

The method has caused millions of others to wonder, 
who were not irreverent enough to condemn. 

Often I have been asked, why did it have to be this 
way? or why did that feature have to be added? or why 
does it entail so much suffering on women? 

If God created Adam and Eve without parents and did 
it so easily, why did He not keep on and create all human 
beings without parents? 

If it be granted that we need babies for our discipline 
and for the awakening of parental love, all except the 
first human being could be created not grown up, but 
babes, and the whole sex problem, that so vexes society, 


72 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


would be eliminated at a stroke. Then when a request 
was made for a baby, none need be given to those who 
are not fit to be entrusted with the care of a child. 

The passing on of disease and physical imperfections 
would, also, be prevented. Besides, noble women who 
are deprived now as spinsters, could have perfect children 
direct from the hand of God to rear. 

Some people are so opposed to the present method of 
human propagation that they make it their ground for 
not believing in God at all. 

Our Christian Science friends are so displeased with 
what we call physical birth that they repudiate and will 
have nothing to do with the idea that anyone ever was 
physically born; to them physical birth and all pertaining 
to it is ““a sensual belief’; a false and troublesome illusion 
that we must some day get rid of. They claim that 
God knows nothing of physical birth, for it has no exist- 
ence beyond its existence as an “illusion of mortal mind.” 

So the repugnance and opposition to the present method 
of human propagation takes two forms, one class not 
believing in God because of its existence, and the other 
not believing in its existence, as a fact, because of their 
belief in God. 

Of course, those of us who believe both in God and in 
physical birth, must try to justify the ways of God in this 
as in all other matters. 

@ First, as to the suffering that it entails upon women. 
To say that the pain experienced by them in childbirth, 
as well as other forms of suffering peculiar to women, 


HUMAN PROPAGATION 73 


is greatly increased by the sins of modern civilization is 
a partial defense, for more primitive women do not suffer 
as much. The suffering that comes from broken hearts, 
diseased bodies, and wrecked homes, is largely due to the 
wanton sins of men. 

While all this is very sad, and, as far as possible, should 

be remedied, it does not constitute a complete answer to 
the above objection. 
@ To my mind, if we are to live forever, as Christians 
believe, it requires no very deep philosophy to realize 
that it is best for us to begin at the very beginning of 
things and learn each lesson well. 

At any rate, no doubt exists about where we begin; we 
begin as a tiny cell. 

Even after birth, the potentially self-conscious soul 
advances very slowly; it takes weeks, months, and even 
years for us to become truly self-conscious. 

Man, the son of the Infinite, goes to school with God, 
and nature is the schoolhouse. 

At the start, therefore, God initiates His child into 

all the mysteries of existence in the process of giving him 
life and receiving him into a most holy and responsible 
partnership. 
@ If there were no such thing as sex affinity, it would 
be an irreparable loss to society. When the sex impulse 
is normal, and kept normal by being held in true relation 
to all noble sentiments and high ideals, it is further en- 
nobled because they impart their own sanctity to it. 

Under these conditions, it helps to consummate the 


74 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


most sacred and complete friendship possible, the friend- 
ship of a true husband and wife. 

Such husband and wife tend to become dearer to each 
other, if that were possible, than parents and children. 

A true husband and wife are like a pair of eyes, two 
in number but one in the focus to which their two lives 
have been brought by the pitch to which their interpene- 
tration is carried. 

Their physical attractiveness, their mental adaptability, 
their mutual ideals, their common ambitions, their love 
of beauty, and the beauty of their love blend to make up 
the completest life known to man. 

God’s presence and approval form the very soul of 
this complete masculine and feminine union. 

No happy element seems to be omitted; music alone 
of aught else combines in the same degree of coalescence 
the noblest ideals and the divinest inspirations with the 
richest blending of material elements. 

@ The eternal masculine and feminine are the two halves 
of a perfect whole through which God finds His com- 
pletest expression. 

Around this gateway to life are necessarily found roads 
ascending to the loftiest summits and others descending 
to the deepest chasms. 

The depth to which the chasms will sink is measured by 
the altitude to which the peaks are lifted. 

A leap from the summit’s height means a plunge to 
the bottom of the abyss. The heights cause some to grow 
dizzy and take the plunge. 


HUMAN PROPAGATION ms 


Here at the beginning of life is room and to spare 
for tragedy; and it too often follows. No one can exag- 
gerate the glory of the summit, neither should he mini- 
mize the gloom of the chasm. 

@ When tragedies occur, our chief problem is how to 
deal wisely with the victims. 

Two classes of victims are portrayed in the Scriptures: 
The one, confirmed in wrong doing, after eating her 
dainty meal purchased at the price of virtue, “wipes her 
mouth and says, I have done no wrong.” 

The other is like the woman who fell trembling before 

Jesus and her wicked accusers like a poor dumb, fright- 
ened animal. 
@ Those among us who have eaten this kind of forbidden 
fruit, divide still into these two classes: The one, hard, 
proud, and even boastful; the other, like the publican 
who “did not so much as lift up his eyes unto heaven, 
but smote upon his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to 
me a sinner.’ ”’ 

In such a complex and kaleidoscopic world, all kinds 
of cases occur; from those who, like innocent and unsus- 
pecting birds, find themselves ensnared, they know not 
how, to those who compass the earth to win a victim. 

Some have been among the purest of earth before 
their humiliation, and after their redemption they have 
become even more pure, because the fires through which 
they pass melt the dross away and leave their souls white 
again. 

@ None but God is wise enough to mix and proportion 


76 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


mercy and justice to the need and desert of each victim 
or offender. 3 

The erring daughter of a certain Scotch elder was 
infinitely more sinned against than sinning, for she was 
‘kept a prisoner in her home for ten years as a punishment 
by her pharisaical father. 

Then, a new minister who had been nearly two years 
in the parish, was first informed of her existence; and 
only because she wanted to take communion. 

Needless to say, the minister proceeded to break the 
proud father’s heart and to secure the release and human 
treatment of a white soul that had been drained of its 
blood and hope. 

How different from the conduct of this father was 
the behavior of Jesus who said to the poor woman, 
“Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more.” 

Only God knows how many alabaster boxes have been 
broken over the feet of the forgiving Jesus. 

Yet no one ever spoke more sharply to the unchaste: 
“No adulterer hath eternal life.’ He even went further 
and penetrated to the source of the evil: “He that looketh 
on a woman to lust after her hath already committed 
adultery.” 


2. Woutp It Not Br BETTER IF THE SEX IMPULSE DID 
Not APPEAR BEFORE THE AGE OF FITNESS FOR 
MARRIAGE? 

@ Why should there be those years of strain and danger 

between adolescence and the time for marrying? 


HUMAN PROPAGATION 77 


The answer is that they are years of preparation. 

Adolescence is the period of rapid growth, of a nev 
sense of social relations, of newly awakened desires, 
visions, hopes, and ambitions and it has neither the time 
nor the strength for anything else than the acquirement 
of these raw materials for the construction of the mature 
adult life. 

Of necessity, this work of accumulation commences 
while the body is young and plastic. The ten years of 
adolescence that precede marriage, is a period none too 
long for the heavy task thus laid upon the shoulders of 
the youth. 

He is not fit for married life and the exacting responsi- 
bilities of business while this work of expansion is going 
on within his own life. 

He must make himself, before he makes a career; and 
to do that, he must acquire all the ingredients that enter 
into the composition of a full man. 

He must not only secure all the parts of a complete 
man, but he must learn how to assemble those parts and 
put them under the control of his will before he claims 
the full privileges of a man. 

To be sure, this involves risk and danger, but risk and 
danger are unavoidable in tasks of the first magnitude, 
where achievements of the highest glory are possible. 

Just as he would have no time for the great work of 
adolescent expansion after he is married and in business, 
so he has no time for marriage and constructive business 
while he is engaged in the exacting tasks of adolescence. 


78 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Though what goes on in the period of adolescence 
should make but may break a life, yet it would not be 
so uncertain which if we properly looked after our boys 
and girls. 

If they are neglected during this period, we may expect 
evil after-consequences. 

As it is, we often fail to do our duty by them and 
then they blame God for the results. 

How often we hear it said, “I am not to blame, God 
made me this way; how can I help being what I am?” 
@ Young people should be instructed and befriended as 
regards the sex impulse by those who know the meaning 
and sacredness of all phases of life. 

In addition to this, they should be wholesomely em- 
ployed as much of the time as possible and their leisure 
surrounded by the best of influences. 

Unfortunately, however, many boys obtain a world of 
distorted information on this most delicate subject from 
the thoroughly unprincipled; many of them work beside 
men and other lads whose conversation is saturated with 
lust; and not infrequently they take in the fact that some 
professing Christians thoroughly enjoy hearing or telling 
obscene stories. 

Not even a minister can be long in the company of 
certain groups of men before his pardon is asked while 
a story infected with deadly poison is distributed; and 
if the minister is weak enough to smile while the crowd 
roars, he is pronounced “a regular guy and a jolly good 
fellow.” 


HUMAN PROPAGATION 79 


Considering the industrious way many people court 

hell, it is a wonder that society fares no worse than it 
does. 
@ Many boys, otherwise clean, without realizing the sin 
and danger of what they are doing, dwell upon thoughts 
having to do with sex that will bind upon them shackles 
as strong as those forged by opium or strong drink. 

The practice is all the more deceptive and dangerous 
because the boys need go nowhere, buy nothing, do noth- 
ing, see no one, nor be seen; all they have to do is just 
to harbor thoughts of a sensual nature long enough and 
the harm is done, they have completed the formation of 
the habit of lustful thoughts. 

Thereafter if they go wrong, their responsibility is 
much the same as that of an otherwise respectable man 
who gets intoxicated occasionally; just as what he calls 
his uncontrollable appetite is for drink, theirs is for lust. 

Measures beyond anything heretofore used must be 
devised to teach boys and girls how to avoid or, once in, 
how to get out of the toils of this most blending and 
accursed habit, one that afflicts and sticks like a leech to 
a very large portion of society. 

Furthermore, every young man should have it thor- 
oughly drilled into him (and usually it is not) that it 
is unmanly and contemptible of him to compel the one 
whom he hopes to make his wife, to bear all the burden 
of protecting their mutual virtue. 

@ The adolescence period in which young people are so 
apt to go wild, may be turned to the noblest account. 


So WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


It may be more than of passing interest here for me 
to testify that during the latter half of my ministry, I 
have not found a boy fourteen years of age into whose 
inmost soul I have not been able to enter through the 
vestibule of the sex question. 

By having his tempestuous inner life explained and ad- 
justed and its harmony restored he has invariably com- 
mitted himself to a life of Christian service. 

However, this work, when performed as it should be 
done by the minister, is performed in a very different 
way from the ordinary instruction on sex physiology and 
hygiene—though such instruction is included. 

It needs to be lifted onto the plane of a spiritual art. 

There is great need that more should be written about 
this art in a concrete and illustrative manner. 

Like and equivalent happy results have been achieved 
with classes of young men from eighteen to twenty-two 
years of age who were already members of the Church. 
At their age, they were ready for an advanced course. 

The sex impulse is one of the greatest blessings, or 
one of the greatest curses, according as it subdues or is 
subdued. 


3. ARE SEX CONDITIONS AT THE PRESENT TIME A 
GROUND FOR OPTIMISM OR PESSIMISM? 
@ Why under trying circumstances, or in unguarded 
moments, some men and women yield to temptation, ad- 
mits of some sort of explanation. 
But faced as they know they are by the prevalence 


HUMAN PROPAGATION 81 


of this sin and the sorrow caused by it, why so much 
in the way of lustful suggestion is done or complacently 
tolerated by many who claim respectability is far harder 
of explanation. 

Since everyone knows that it amounts to feeding 
a flame that threatens to destroy our civilization as it 
has destroyed nations in the past, this is appalling. 

@ In my opinion, this easy-going attitude is one of the 
chief danger zones of the world. 

Sex passion is more dangerous for many people than 
their greed for money and strong drink; and besides, 
as society weakens here, the vicious element needs money 
more than ever for its evil business and will do more das- 
tardly things to get the wherewithal to pay for the pleas- 
ure of vice. 

When a young man is known to be spending too much 
money, the first surmise and fear is that some companion 
may be helping him to spend it in vice. 

Because of the great number to whom sexual sugges- 
tions make successful appeals to their indulgence, the 
exhibition of them has a commercial value that severely 
taxes the arm of the law to restrain it from the most 
degrading excess even in our best cities. 

It requires eternal vigilance to keep places of amuse- 
ment, summer resorts, habits of dress, and periodicals 
free from exercising a vicious influence on multitudes 
who would not wish to be classed among the lewd and 
unrespected. 

@ While people are not generally as hopelessly weak as 


82 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


some evil-minded persons believe, yet I am afraid that 
the situation is worse than some good people realize. 
At least, there is enough secret and open weakness to 
make us serious minded. 

Even so, what gain is there in blaming God for the 

way we treat a great trust? That will not make things 
a whit better. 
@ Without becoming either overdiscouraged, or fool- 
ishly optimistic, let us accept God’s methods of preserv- 
ing the species as we know them to be; recognizing that 
our part in this partnership with Him in the production 
of human life can be so administered as to be the best 
possible provision for our happiness and training. 

God might have made woman a dual sex, but that 
would have been an irreparable loss. 

It is far better to be given the chance to accept the 

good under conditions of avoidable danger, than to be 
freed from those dangers at the expense of losing the 
good altogether. 
@ Arvund this partnership of God and man, and of 
man and woman, in the production of human life, stand 
on watch as sentinels, the peaceful Mount of Olives, the 
jagged hills of Mount Sinai, and the delectable Mount 
of the Transfiguration. 

Fach of the factors represented by these mountains 
of blessing is too important to be omitted from human 
life. 

Law, love, and glory belong together ; even God has no 
power to separate them. I am convinced that the exist- 


HUMAN PROPAGATION 83 


ing provisions for making man are both beautiful and 
wise. 

Here is this august assemblage at the very source of 
human life: the appeal of nature in a most tangible and 
subtle moment of revelation, God in the midst of His 
greatest creative capacity, law in its most imperative de- 
mands for safety, and love in its sweetest compelling influ- 
ence all present and completely bound together; keen 
physical pleasure, deathless love for wife and children, 
the strongest sense of dependence upon God and the 
highest obligation to do right for love’s sake, all combine 
in the execution of God’s method of making and preserv- 
ing a helpless human life. 

@ In every experience known to man, as well as in music 
and in art, physical pleasure performs a true and neces- 
sary part. 

But physical pleasure must not suffer abuse and cor- 
ruption; if it does the whole life is degraded. 

Since in nothing that we can do or that happens to us 
can we escape physical pleasure or pain, we must learn 
to be safe and happy companions with them, and partly 
because of them. 

Pleasure is a strong element in the bonds of attraction 
between man and wife; but upon mere pleasure, true 
love puts safe limits. 

The children that are born are a new source of love 
and obligation that further help to keep mere pleasure 
of every sort within proper bounds. 

Here again law is present to point out the safe road 


84 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


for love to travel; and if that way is followed, glory 
awaits us. 

Around God’s method of making a human body is 
organized the true school of life, the family. 

In this vital social unit nothing seems to be omitted; 
in the Christian family the universal kingdom has its 
beginning; just as cells combine to make a body, and 
individuals to make a family, so families combine to 
make a kingdom. 

From this socialized vital unit, the family, the whole 
civilized body of society is evolved. 

And as a body is no healthier than the cells in its 

make-up, so society is no healthier than the families of 
which it is composed. 
@ Let us rejoice then, in that method of creation which 
draws a man and a woman into the most endearing com- 
radeship and makes them the parents of a little child 
that bears the impress of their combined image; that 
opens their hearts to the deep wells of father-love and 
mother-love, that makes possible the sweet, playful fel- 
lowship of little brothers and sisters, and thus binds a 
true family into a social unit by cables as strong as the 
power which holds the heavenly constellations in their 
course. 

How can a man forget the strange new love he felt 
for his wife when first he learned that she was expecting 
to be the mother of his child? Has he ever known a 
richer or happier moment than when he saw their baby 
laid in her fond arms? The holy look of motherhood 


HUMAN PROPAGATION 85 


that came to her dear face, and the light of yearning 
that shone in her eyes, were they not blessings above 
price? 

@ How else could God have taught us the blessed meaning 
of His own fatherly love, as we should know it, if any 
detail had been different? Philosophy could not have 
made that lack up to us, poetry could not have been 
written, music would be without soul, art could be no 
more than painting and chiseling, and work would be 
robbed of its chief reward. 

How otherwise, Love, thou guide and light of all who 
truly live, couldst thou have been born? 

The baby’s first smile, the first tooth, the first word, 
the first step, the first heroic deed, the first day in school ; 
ah, but for the continued succession of all those firsts, 
until that momentous last day before he went out into 
the great world from the shelter of the family nest, how 
could God have made us fit for life; for His own life of 
work and love? 

@ Then, too, after they go from us, we live our lives 
over again in them, and in their children, and in their 
children’s children, until we draw near our journey’s end. 

Even in death Jacob wanted Joseph to close his eyes. 

I never understood his wish until I closed the eyes 
of my own father; those warm eyes that would see no 
more on earth. The surprising warmth and softness that 
remained for a few moments after death in those eyelids, 
afforded the last human touch of him whom I delighted 
to call father. 


86 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


@ Man may at times falter, he may stumble, he may 
eat wormwood and gall, but written deep in his being is 
the saving health of a memory, that a very little thing 
may revive, of himself and his childhood home brooded 
over by a fond mother and a kind father. 

@ Dear father and mother, God’s holy gift to us, we 
send after you our love and our prayers: and dear Father 
God, for making us thus, we hallow Thy Name. 


CHAPTER IV 
HOW IS THE SOUL MADE? 


Could God have awakened souls to con- 
sciousness before He shaped His energies 
into a highly organized sense world? 

Are soul and body made at the same time? 

Does man have a share in soul-making? 

Should children ten or twelve years of age 
join the Church? 

Is it wise, kind, or necessary for God to 
ordain that we must pass through a dan- 
gerous period of adolescence? 

Are there temptations peculiar to mature 
life? 

Is it a misfortune to grow old? 

Is death a curse inflicted because of man’s 
sin? 


@ The mystery of being lurks in the heart of everything. 
How God, a human soul, or a spear of grass can exist 
at all, is past our understanding. 

How we are able to think or feel or act, we do not 
know; yet we are very comfortably acquainted with all 
these sweet mysteries. 


87 


88 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


We do not need to believe that man’s soul was made 
from nothing; we have ground for thinking it was 
evolved from the fullness of God’s life. 

Without, therefore, even seeking to delve into the 
impenetrable mystery of being, we will simply undertake 
to examine the road over which the soul comes to self- 
realization, the circumstances that attend its coming, 
and the manner in which it must react upon its boundless 
environment if it is to achieve its fullest, richest life. 


I. CouLp Gop Have AWAKENED SOULS TO CoNSCIOUS- 
NESS BEFORE HE SHAPED His ENERGIES INTO A 
HIGHLY ORGANIZED SENSE WoRLD? 


@ Apparently He could not; at least, He did not. 

When God began to shape His energies into a sense 
world, the preparatory work of making intelligent souls 
was begun. 

A look backward from our vantage ground makes 
it manifestly plain that a family of souls was God’s ob- 
jective from the beginning. 

Had we been onlookers in the beginning, however, we 
never should have dreamed that souls would finally 
emerge from such a confounding and terrifying display 
of forces as was then taking place. 

Much less could we have realized that this frightful 
dynamic outburst of the Infinite would create a delicate 
living cell, something so delicate that any but the lightest 
touch would destroy it; nor that provision could be 
made by which this tender cell would lie safely cradled 


HOW IS THE SOUL MADE? 89 


and cushioned in the midst of this swirling, fiery energy 
of the universe. 

We could not have foreseen the systems of checks and 
balances that would gradually lessen the awful strokes of 
cosmic energy until they would fall gentle as a breath 
upon the little cell; nor could we have conceived of how 
anything so delicate and subtle as a self-conscious soul 
could be awakened in the sensitive organism. 

But looking backward, we can trace the sequence: 
soul to body, body to universe, universe to divine energy; 
and all of them definitely bound together and embosomed 
in God where they always potentially were. 

@ A child could not have visioned the coming of the 
first automobile until all its machinery was in place and 
the car began to move of its own power. 

Similarly, before the ignition which set in motion the 
first self-conscious soul that began to rule over God’s 
forces from which it sprang, and to praise its maker, no 
one like unto our present selves would have guessed what 
God was doing. 

The order and manner of what God does often lie open 
before us after it is done; but how He is able to do it 
at all, we do not know. 

We perceive enough to know, looking backward, 
that the preparatory work for the begetting of souls 
Was a process indescribably long and overwhelmingly 
great. 

This by itself predisposes us to concede a place of the 
highest importance to a soul. 


90 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


2. ARE SouL AND Bopy MADE AT THE SAME TIME? 


@ It is absolutely known that God does not call souls 
into conscious being here on earth by an act unrelated 
to the integration of His energies. 

The crowning act of begetting a soul is not isolated 
from, but attached to, a universe, a fertilized cell, and 
a growing body. 

A human body is God’s universe blossoming; it is 
God’s promise of a soul soon to appear. 

As a fruit blossom is the cradle of the fruit, so the 
human body is the cradle of the soul. 

Since the self-conscious soul awakes only after the 
body has been played upon by a myriad of influences, the 
soul may therefore, in a very rudimentary way, begin 
with the beginning of the body. 

Though the body functions in a simple way before 
birth, and to a higher degree immediately after birth, yet 
there remains much to be done after birth to make it a 
fully obedient, workable instrument. 

Soul and body unfold together. Very early in the 
child’s life the conscious soul begins to appear, but the 
work of perfecting it is eternity long. 

@ As the soul can not grow in capacity unless the body 
grows in size, neither can the soul improve in quality un- 
less the nerves and muscles are trained. 

Since soul and body thus unfold and prosper or weaken 
together, they must be trained together. 


HOW IS THE SOUL MADE? gi 


Nothing can be done to the one without doing some- 
thing corresponding to the other. 

It may, therefore, truthfully be said that soul and 
body are made or marred in the same process, and that 
the making of a perfect instrument for the use of a per- 
fect soul is our chief occupation. 

@ From almost the beginning of life, the soul outgrows 
its immediate body and must lay hold of other objects 
and make them likewise its instruments. 

As the soul’s power to invent grows, its ability to 
appropriate increases, and the universe progressively 
becomes its body, or instrument, which it uses in com- 
mon with God and other souls. 

Since both individual and social expansion are thus 
achieved, applied science, therefore, becomes a highly 
religious duty. 

Scientific knowledge in the possession of the unprin- 
cipled is the most dangerous thing in the world. 

But when applied science devotes itself to the execu- 
tion of a Christianized program, it becomes both the 
soul’s means of self-enlargement and the means by which 
it transforms the universe into a heavenly home full of 
divine tools at our service. 

@ The child-body must not only be exercised, but it must 
be skillfully acted upon by a myriad of enveloping forces, 
physical and spiritual, or the soul will cease to grow. 

The beautiful task of enlarging and perfecting environ- 
ment and soul together is our lifelong concern. 


g2 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


And when we learn how to grow soul and body to- 
gether without war and without friction, then we shall 
find incredibly more real satisfaction in living. 

Set up perfect harmony between body and soul, between 
man and man, and between God and man, and we will 
have a universe vibrant with the love of righteousness, 
and the joy of a divine family living peacefully together 
in Father’s house. 

@ An occasional person may have a body that is de- 
fective in many respects and still achieve a wonderful 
development of soul. 

For example, a man may be blind and still a great man, 
but he could not be great if all men were blind. 

A man may have no hands and yet be large in intellec- 
tual and moral stature since he is served in a thousand 
ways by those who have hands. 

Because we are members of a vast social body, a man 
may be maimed in many ways without soul injury, pro- 
vided his brain is not injured. 

A generally weak body must have some sound spot in 
it, however, to foster a great soul; and all souls residing 
in defective bodies must be surrounded and helped out 
by normal beings or come to grief. 

Where there is no body there is no soul, and where 
there is but little body as to brains, there is but small 
development of soul. 

Not infrequently, I know, the crippled child comes to 
have the trained brains of the family; he is the only 


HOW IS THE SOUL MADE? 93 


educated one and he was educated by the great sacrifices 
of the family simply because he was a cripple. 

That we belong to groups and live in social relations, 
is inexpressibly fortunate for every one of us; for the 
most capable person by himself can supply but few of 
his imperative needs. 


3. Dots Man HAvE A SHARE IN SOUL-MAKING? 


@ It has already been shown in the previous chapter, 
that from the fertilizing of the single, minute cell at 
the beginning to the birth of the fully formed body, 
man takes a part; and that the health and conduct 
of the parents have greatly affected the outcome of 
the constitution-making that goes on in the unborn 
babe. 

@ After the birth of the child, the delicate work of 
evoking his self-conscious soul immediately begins. 

From this stage of soul-making on, man takes a larger 
share; the parents, the neighbors, and the child himself 
become important factors in this supreme task. 

If the body is one of poor quality, their problem will 
be more difficult to solve and the results are likely to be 
proportionately less satisfactory. 

If the child is born with a physical sensitiveness that 
is abnormal, an inner propulsion will combine with the 
outer stimulus to give the child a predisposition to wrong 
thoughts and actions. 

To meet that situation will necessitate the stimulating 


94 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


of dormant counter-balancing feelings that will ward off 
the kinds of stimulus to which he is supersensitive. 

The divine-human task of making a soul after the birth 
of a child is the most delicate and serious work to which 
man is called; it is a work that never ends, because a 
soul is never finished. 

@ After birth, God does not leave off, but continues to 
carry on the chemistry of the body and to cooperate 
with the parents in all ways. 

The chemistry of the body, as we have already said, 
is part and parcel of the integration of God’s own ener- 
gies in the universe; for nothing less than this whole 
integration of God’s energies is the matrix of the soul. 

God, however, is successful in His further work of 
building the body only as the parents accept the responsi- 
bility He lays upon them and intelligently cooperate. 

They must find food suited to the particular child 
because the child not properly cared for, suffers and, 
being fretful, taxes itself in harmful ways. 

The energy that it should be spending in learning to 
see and hear and play, is spent in crying and fretting. 

Many children thus waste precious months during this 
important period of achieving a soul. 

If the child for days and weeks is kept too warm or 
too cold, or in discomfort of any other kind, the ill 
effects are registered in the nervous system from which 
the self-conscious soul proceeds, and communicate them- 
selves to it. 

All the sights and sounds that play upon the sensi- 


HOW IS THE SOUL MADE? 95 


tive little body help to determine its future character- 
istics. 

If the child gets too much or too little attention, the 
evil results are much the same. And if influences of 
the wrong sort are brought to bear upon it, the child’s 
disposition receives a wrong bent. 

@ As the child reaches two or three years of age, the 
way that the spirit and temper of the parents begin to 
affect it becomes intensified. 

If the father and mother are filled with love and 
strength, their treatment will both consciously and uncon- 
sciously, but much more unconsciously, affect the child 
in a thousand ways for good. 

At five years of age, a child may receive the spiritual 
life of its parents as a rose drinks in the sunlight. 

The religious conversations of my mother with me at 
this period, thrilled my whole being. 

No mother should fail to spend quiet hours alone with 
each child of hers and reveal to them her divinest heart. 
Neither should any father do less. 

Both child and parents need these times of intimacy 
for their fuller and richer growth. But alas! many 
parents have no such life to give, and consequently their 
children are robbed of some of the greatest formative 
influences in the achieving of a soul. 

God Himself is deprived of access to the child because 
the parents, forgetting their responsibility, have unwit- 
tingly closed the door through which He might enter; 
the door of their own lives. 


96 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


My own precious memories make the sight of little 
children of five, whose parents have not the supreme gift 
to give, a sorry one for me. 

I love and pity such little children because they will 
never know the sweetest thing that ever came to me; the 
saving thing that has followed me through all my sinning, 
repenting, and striving. 

However, simply because many have not this gift to 
bequeath their children, I will not permit myself to forget 
that many others have, and they are the greatest hope 
of the world. 

Nevertheless, those who did not absorb the beautiful 
sense of God during the first critical period of soul- 
making, usually find the sense of God dim when they are 
grawn up, and much more difficult to acquire. 

It is not easy to salt bread after it is baked, nor to 

give God-consciousness to a soul after it has become too 
much engrossed with worldly interests. 
@ As I look back on my life, I am convinced that it 
would have been far better for me to have missed the 
Sunday school than to have been kept from church dur- 
ing the years between five and ten. 

I never had any sense of God awakened in me in the 
kind of Sunday school that I attended. 

I am not meaning to minimize the worth of the possi- 
bilities of the Sunday school as a means of instruction 
and devotion; | am simply affirming that the church 
(and I went to both) had far more to do with the making 
of my soul between the ages of five and ten. 


HOW IS THE SOUL MADE? 97 


While Sunday school was a buzz, church was keeping 
silence before God. 

Not always was I well behaved, but never was I unmind- 
ful of a restraining hand, or a look, that made me con- 
scious that something more than the ordinary was taking 
place; for I knew that particular look always meant more 
than that I should obey my mother. 

Half of church is the kind of mother that sits by your 
side. 

The silent congregation, the spiritual dynamics of my 

mother, the earnestness of the minister, the solemn pray- 
ers and vows, the reverential reading from the great book. 
the appeal and lift of the sermon, the manifest effect on 
the congregation, the stately hymns with their great 
diapason bass, and at last the benediction with uplifted 
hand, all conspired to exert formative influences on the 
making of my soul unlike anything else that ever entered 
my life. 
@ Never am I more grateful for a mother’s sheltering 
arm and watchful eye beside me in the pew, that were to 
me, as I now judge, the loving arm and eye of God, than 
when I see three or four little spiritual orphans wander 
alone into the church, first to look about with a sense 
of awe, and afterward to busy themselves in a way that 
disturbs the congregation. 

And the boys and girls who stand at the door waiting 
for church to end and Sunday school to begin, I know 
are not properly making their souls. 

The proudest thing I wear is a silver knife on my 


98 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


watch guard, the gift of a little boy seven years old who 
was so in love with his church and minister that he 
insisted on making the present with my name engraved. 

Children approaching ten are wonderful beings; their 
accomplishments have already been prodigious, their be- 
ings are colored through and through with varied dyes. 

By the time he is ten, a child is either a Christian or 
a pagan. 

If he is a pagan, he has been greatly sinned against. 
His parents, his neighbors, his teachers, and his play- 
mates have done him great harm; they have put a warp 
in his soul that, like the bow in legs, will be hard to 
straighten. 

@ During this period the child has a vivid imagination; 
without one he never could make much of a soul. 

He thinks, he experiments, he imitates; he sins, he re- 
pents, he believes; and best of all, he loves. 

The Scriptures well read in his hearing, the family 
prayers devoutly offered, the manner in which he is put 
to bed, the hand that tucks him in, the last words of 
praise and love, the hope expressed that he will achieve 
a noble manhood, the God bless you and keep you, the 
last loving strokes of the forehead and hair, all these 
things are essential in the making of a soul. 

In that atmosphere, the vivid manner in which it all 
comes back to him, if he has done wrong through the 
day, resulting in confessions, tears, and prayers, makes 
night the daytime of the soul. 

With body and soul both made clean, he sinks to rest 


HOW IS THE SOUL MADE? 99 


with these last thoughts and feelings sinking deeper into 
his soul; thoughts and feelings that work while he sleeps 
and bring him to the bright new day ready for the next 
step in the great work of soul-making. 


4. SHOULD CHILDREN TEN OR TWELVE YEARS OF AGE 
JoIN THE CHURCH? 


@ In my opinion, they should not join the Church, or be 
confirmed; but they should be intelligently and lovingly 
prepared for their first communion. 

It is a sin against children ten years of age not to give 
them every possible chance, that is proper, to express and 
deepen their religious lives. 

I warn Churches and parents that they are failing their 
children when they do not give them specific spiritual 
help at this important period of their lives. 

Children are more like men and women at the age of 
ten than they will be again until they are well past the 
period of adolescence. 

At ten, they are rounding out the first great chapter in 
soul-making; and every reasonable opportunity should 
be given to them to deepen their religious life before 
the exciting period of adolescence begins. 

This is the time when they should be prepared for first 
communion, receive Bibles from the Church, and in 
every other possible way be made sensible of the warm 
and endearing arm of the Church about them. 

If they have joined the Church or been confirmed at 
ten years of age, what has the Church left itself that is 


100 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


adequate for them in the exciting period of adolescence 
when it comes? 

q At fourteen, God hurries up the process of body build- 
ing; he lays such a wealth of material at the disposal of 
our boys and girls that they do not know what to do 
with it. 

And because it all tingles with warmth and life, they 
are tempted to make a grand bonfire of it at once and 
thus unwittingly burn up much of the material intended 
for the building of their future lives. 

They have now reached the normal time, after more 
thorough preparation, to join the Church or be confirmed. 

At this time of ferment in which they are tossed to 
and fro by great impulses to become much better or 
worse, they need something big and commanding, some- 
thing to give their souls a permanent set in the right 
direction as they leave childhood forever. 

@ In the old-time revival, the big thing was conversion at 
the altar with its accompanying memorable, super-ordi- 
nary psychic state. 

That, however, is largely a thing of the past although 
no real working substitute for it is in general use. 

The inadequate manner of preparing and receiving 
young people into the Church usually practised among us 
is pitiful. 

Though I am a Congregationalist, yet for the past fif- 
teen years I have conducted a confirmation service for all 
who come into the church on confession of faith. 

Nothing could induce me to omit any detail of their 


HOW IS THE SOUL MADE? IOL 


preparation, or the laying on of hands after the manner 
of an Episcopal or Roman Catholic bishop. 

I count this one of my highest joys in the ministry, and 
feel glad that I am the bishop when it comes to the laying 
on of hands and blessing my own spiritual children. 

Because they are mine, and because I know them and 
love them personally, I can bless them as no one else can 
do it. 

It is for no superstitious regard for ritual that I plead, 
but for some sane and worthy means of bolting firmly 
together the thought, love, and conscience of youth and 
the great privileges and realities of the spiritual life. 


5. Is Ir Wise, K1np, or NECESSARY FOR GOD TO ORDAIN 
Tuat WE Must Pass THRouGH A DANGEROUS 
PERIOD OF ADOLESCENCE? 

@ In my opinion, it is—all of these. 

But let us first glance over the period of adolescence. 
From fourteen to eighteen boys and girls are in high 
school, and come in thinking contact with a vast new 
world that is intellectual in its makeup. 

Their sudden growth is matched in suddenness by their 
headlong acquaintance with this new and even more be- 
wildering environment. 

Whether the wise are fools or the fools wise often 
becomes for them a perplexing problem; each, by turn, 
makes a powerful appeal. 

The specious tones of the sirens often bid for their 
attention in cadences that sound beguiling. 


102 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


In normal youth the physical, naturally first, makes 
numerous and insistent demands. 

With so many new things within the youth’s reach for 
the first time and his acquisitiveness eager to experiment 
with them all, the invitation of siren voices is often 
accepted rather than the counter invitations of the voices 
that call him upward. 

@ The youth now needs fathering quite as much as he 
needs mothering. 

A boy resents his lack of any masculine quality that 
would distinguish him from a woman. 

If his father is traveling the wrong road, the boy in 
his teens, if not through all his later life, is more likely 
to follow his father than his mother, notwithstanding the 
fact that her early influence and training may have been 
paramount. 

The most serious need of the world is for fathers 
of the right stamp in sufficient numbers to establish 
a companion tradition of the true father to supple- 
ment that of the true mother, of whom we have heard 
so much. 

It is pathetic to hear men rave, while walking in the 
footsteps of sinful fathers, over their good mothers. 

Many of these men will do anything for “mother” 
except the one thing that would give her the most happi- 
ness; and that is, to be a good Christian man. 

This sorrowful, unfulfilled wish of mothers denied 
them by their doting sons is one of the painful memories 
in every minister’s experience. 


HOW IS THE SOUL MADE? 103 


@ Adolescence is a rapid river, flowing between the lands 
of youth and maturity. 

There are no bridges, and the youth must undertake to 
swim across at the risk of being carried downstream. 

The newly awakened sex impulse is tugging away with 
him; the choice of a life’s calling impends; men and 
women, good and bad, are exhibiting their lives for imi- 
tation; the many forms of youthful pleasure that con- 
sume precious time, if nothing worse, are after him; and 
the easy-going standards of the society in which he lives— 
all these cry aloud to the youth to come and join them. 

In this maelstrom of contending forces the youth must 
achieve a will or go down in ignominious defeat. 

Up to fourteen, while he was acquiring the rudiments 
of a will, his parents have been able to stand in the 
breach and shelter his soul; but from now on, their part 
in his salvation must decrease and his own increase. 

@ To achieve the will to high ideals and noble accom- 
plishments is the most central thing in the making of a 
soul. 

Whatever one’s gifts or “accomplishments” may be, 
if he lack the will to choose in the light of reason and 
achieve according to the urge of conscience, he is a ship 
on the broad sea of life without a rudder. 

A person may be as stubborn as a mule, he may have 
the human equivalents of all the mule’s tricks and per- 
sistence, and yet lack that divine thing, a will guided by 
moral penetration and sound judgment, the very center 
of a Godlike soul. 


104 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


A colored minister once made a slip and read, “And 
Darius thought to set Daniel over the whole realm be- 
cause he had a good ‘spine’ in him.” 

His substituting of spine for spirit made good Scrip- 
ture, nevertheless. 

But the right kind of backbone is as notable for its 
flexibility as for its rigidity. 

Stubbornness, which many mistake for a will, is a back- 
bone without joints; it is a nuisance to the possessor and 
makes him a nuisance to everyone else. 

@ In his quest after a more fully unfolded soul, every 
human being must journey over the romantic and dan- 
gerous road of adolescence. 

This is not simply nor mainly that God may try him, 
though the experience does try him, but because every 
other road is too barren; no other road leads through a 
country that is supplied with ample enough material for 
a full, rich life. 

The too common idea that all dangers and hardships 
are simply for the purpose of testing us is grossly false. 

All incitements to growth ask to be taken as opportu- 
nity and present themselves in that hope. 

@ The divine provision for this crisis is a call, deep and 
profound as eternity. 

And fortunate the youth who hears the call! It is 
deep calling unto deep; the infinite without offering to 
match the infinite within. 

Though the youth can not know all that it means, yet 
he may be very certain that it is his call. 


HOW IS THE SOUL MADE? 10s 


The call may or may not include his vocation. Whether 
it includes the vocation or not, it is his call to a life of 
definite purpose. 

The unfathomed depths to which the ordinary boy or 

girl may be conscious of a call reminds one inevitably 
and strongly of Jesus that time in the temple when He 
became so interested in the deeper voices that He forgot 
to return home with His parents. 
@ That which perplexes parents, during this period, is 
their uncertainty whether the growing aloofness of their 
child means that he is about to take a plunge into the 
dark, or step forth with a mission to the world. 

Whichever it may be, the youth has no desire to pro- 
claim it from the housetop; because a plunge into the 
dark is the last thing to bear telling, and a mission to 
the world seems far too presumptuous. 

It is his secret. He is being born again, and will not 
cry out until his new birth is fully accomplished. 

Whoever is endowed with extra-fine nervous sensitive- 
ness, is headed for either a saint or a devil; he will find 
it difficult not to be decidedly one or the other. 

A friend once asked me, Why is it that a good Christian 
woman, the mother of two beautiful children, and an 
accurate organ player, makes you feel nothing when she 
plays, while a certain dissolute fellow he named, thrills 
you when he is able to sit at the organ? 

@ The nervous fineness and excitadility that made a great 
musician of this man left him equally susceptible to the 
influence of drink. 


106 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Such a gift as his nervous constitution should have 
been consecrated to the highest and guarded with the 
same care that he would have guarded a priceless treasure ; 
but he let it be prostituted to degrading uses. 

A nature that can easily thrill and become intoxicated, 
thrills and becomes intoxicated alike in virtue or vice. 

Edgar Allan Poe is a monument of warning to all 
similarly endowed people. 

We pronounce no judgment upon the finer shades 
of the great Wagner’s character, but we can realize what 
a demon he would have been if he had not tied to a 
star. 

Of course, the cases of Poe and Wagner were excep- 
tional; still the light of the famous shines for the benefit 
of the obscure. 

To cite examples from the ranks of the humble, Martha 
and Mary were marked types in strong contrast, while 
the third member of the household, Lazarus, failed to 
register and is only known as Martha and Mary’s brother. 

Yet Jesus loved Martha and Mary—and Lazarus. 

All types are necessary, and lovable if they respond to 
the love of the highest. What the type shall be, however, 
is largely determined by the physical peculiarities from 
birth, and its usefulness depends upon the cultivation and 
highest consecration of the type—as experimental psy- 
chology clearly shows. 

@ The greatest endowment is coupled to the severest 
temptations, and attended by the gravest risks. 

Many priceless treasures lie at the bottom of the sea. 


HOW IS THE SOUL MADE? 107 


Fortunate was Felix Mendelssohn to have a father who, 
though he had no musical gift of his own, was able to 
recognize the gift of his child and willing to guard it 
with religious care. 

@ Since all heaven and earth is involved in the making 
of a soul, God calls on all heaven and earth to do its best 
to show us in myriad ways that the making of a soul 
is the combined work of a universe. 


6. ARE THERE TEMPTATIONS PECULIAR TO MATURE 
LIFE? 


q “A good man has forgotten more temptations than a 
bad man ever knew.” Those who fall before the first 
great temptation in unconditional surrender, may never 
go on to learn the succession of struggles with the other 
temptations that fall to the lot of a progressively un- 
folding soul. 

A bad man may remain vexed and almost devoured for 
a lifetime with the one same old sin, while the person 
who puts his first arch enemy under his feet moves for- 
ward to meet new foes. 

For him who masters his temptations one by one as 
they arise, many of them in the course of time, get buried 
so far out of sight that they will seldom ever be recalled ; 
and thus it is that the good man has forgotten more temp- 
tations than the bad man ever knew. 

@ It is true that many of the worst crimes committed 
are done by mature people whose characters were sup- 
posed to be established. 


108 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


An old weakness, which had been held at bay but not 
conquered, came to grips with them again in later life, 
and under circumstances far more calamitous. 

After we have moved into a more commodious environ- 
ment where we enjoy the confidence of our fellows because 
of years of faithfulness, circumstances powerless before 
in our smaller world may set an old enemy up to fight 
it out with us to the death. 

This is why hitherto respectable people go down to 
failure after so many partial victories that we had come 
to think them impervious to gross temptations. 

Youth knows no grilling situation comparable to those 
that may arise in mature years. 

In these terrific ordeals homes get broken up on 
grounds that the offending parties never could have 
dreamed in earlier years were possible. 

Money is often misappropriated under circumstances 
that never occurred in earlier life. 

No one knows when changes in his situation may arise 
that will try him to the utmost. 

After graduating from Harvard, a young man entered 
his father’s bank and soon discovered that at the time 
of his death, his father had been trying to cover up a 
shortage. 

To save the honor of his father’s name, the young 
man began replacing the money as rapidly as possible 
but felt compelled in the meantime to continue his father’s 
methods of concealing his theft. 


HOW IS THE SOUL MADE? 109 


The fact of the shortage was discovered, however, and 
the young man was arrested as a criminal. 

No more than this young man can we know what forms 
of temptation lie before us; neither can we know what 
temptations some of our fellows encounter; nor at what 
stage of life any of us may be most severely grilled. 

The admission is fatally easy that every sin, not our 
own, is both foolish and desperately wicked; as fatally 
easy as to juggle with our consciences and to make out 
that our sins are not so bad after all, and may be excused 
on many grounds. 

Every temptation involves a live, if not a debatable, sit- 
uation to the one tempted, and every sin leads to deeper 
moral degradation and to fiercer temptations. 

Not only are we punished for our sins, but we are pun- 
ished by our sins. 

I knew a man who thought his own social vice did not 
much matter, but that those dishonest in money affairs 
should be sent to prison to the last man. 

Another acquaintance of the same stamp, rather loose 
in his own morals, could not bear the mention of mercy 
in mitigation of the dastardly conduct of a Sunday school 
superintendent who, while town treasurer, spent the town’s 
money. 

Not being able to surmise what it means to get caught 
in the toils of that type of temptation, there were no two 
ways about it for him: the man was a devil, cunningly 
parading in Christian clothes. 


110 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


@ The truth seems to have been that the man was sincere 
in his religious profession, but having run short of funds 
in his own business, he foolishly “borrowed” or used the 
town’s money, telling himself it would be easy to replace 
it before it was needed by the town. 

His own business not succeeding as well as expected, 
he could not return the money. This caused him to bor- 
row money from his neighbors and to launch business 
schemes in which he had unbounded confidence. 

These pet schemes failing, the situation began to be 
desperate. He happened to have a fertile mind for in- 
venting money-making schemes that were “sure” to suc- 
ceed ; so he embarked on a new enterprise which necessi- 
tated the borrowing of more money. 

As plan after plan failed, the situation became very 
much more serious. So, desperately lunging this way 
and that to get out of the mire, he sank deeper into 
the quicksand each time. 

“But why did the old hypocrite stay at the head of 
the Sunday school?” 

His reasoning was that he could do nothing now to 
create suspicion or all was lost; his neighbors would be 
injured and his own reputation blasted. 

Yes, his heart ached and his conscience smote; but 
what could he do, he sighed within himself, but to hope 
against hope to find a way to avert the disaster of ex- 
posure? Nothing better occurred to him but to borrow 
more money and waste it on more wild schemes. 

@ When the crash finally came, people said he had robbed 


HOW IS THE SOUL MADE? III 


the town, and swindled all the trusting widows in the 
community who had lent him money—and they put him 
down as a sly, intentional, and unmitigated scoundrel. 

Of course, his first act was very wrong and his efforts 
to remedy it exceedingly foolish and reprehensible ; never- 
theless, his wrongdoing was less intentional from the 
start, no one will deny, than the other man’s social vice. 

They that wish to make a soul must take adequate 
measures to prepare it for the moral and intellectual 
strains incident to mature years. 

@ Passing from the grosser sins, we find a far greater 
host who partially fail in mature years because they prove 
unequal to other subtler temptations. 

There are so many types of competitors, and so many 
shades of motive are met with in every walk of life. 

Success is sweet, and squeamishness over fine shades 
of motive can be very troublesome and costly at times; 
so public opinion is quite divided as to how much prac- 
tical difference these shades of opinion ought to be al- 
lowed to make in the conduct of life. 

Hence it is that multitudes in middle life, having lost 
the idealism of school days, fall into the hell of a con- 
ventionalized respectability that works great harm to 
their own souls and to society. 

Some seeing, and wishing to avoid, hollowness like 
this, go to the other extreme for lack of judgment and 
become wild fanatics in their worship of abstract per- 
fection. 


@ Verily, mature life has its peculiar temptations—to 


II2 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


slow down, let well enough alone and stand pat—and 
because so many wittingly or unwittingly yield to them, 
society as a whole sags, statesmanship crumbles, and the 
world languishes with a moral “dumb ague.” 

Because these temptations of middle life get their 
thousands and ten thousands, civilization becomes dread- 
fully uncivilized; religion has its heart eaten out with a 
disguised selfishness; the doctors of society fail in their 
diagnosis, and startling scientific remedies fail to cure. 

In the long run it will be found that there is no sound 
hope of improving these bad conditions except in universal 
repentance and a return to Christian honesty. 

Without neglecting the protection of childhood and 
adolescence, we must address ourselves more assiduously 
to the needs of middle life, or finally fail to make a soul 
that can ward off everything hostile and establish a per- 
manent order of society. 


7. Is Ir A MisFoRTUNE TO Grow OLD? 


@ Yes, it is a misfortune to grow old, but a privilege to 
grow older. 

If life does not become richer and fuller as the years 
go by, it is bound to become and to be thought less sat- 
isfying. 

Pity the soul that has become blasé. When freshness 
and enthusiasm are gone, life is like hunger without taste. 
@ When I was in college, various peripatetics told us 
that we undergraduates were seeing our best days. 

I did not believe it then, and now I know it is not true. 


HOW IS THE SOUL MADE? 113 


A person of sixty may get more satisfaction out of a 
day than a youth realizes in a month. A friend said to 
me not long ago, 

“T tell my daughters to get all the pleasure out of 
school possible for these are the best days they ever will 
Bees 

“Oh,” said I, “I am telling my daughter that it will 
be better all the way.” 

“Well,” said the neighbor, “It is a God-send if you 
can believe it.” 

She did not realize how true what she said was, but 
this is just what this belief of mine in regard to the 
ripening years is, “a God-send.”’ 

And God will not fail to send if we are forward to 
receive. 

Proclaim ye it from the housetop: The multitudes 
are so hot after pleasure, they are missing happiness. 
Even happiness may not be sought; seek life, and happi- 
ness, unsought, will come to dwell with you. 

@ The trouble is that too many people do not grow older. 

While still children, they assume the privileges and 
responsibilities of men and women and prove not equal 
to the situation. 

The average person in middle life is not really more 
than fifteen years old; he has not surpassed in knowledge 
and self-control a normal youth of that age. 

To be fifty years of age and not fifty years old is a 
calamity. 

But what about having to grow old physically? 


I14 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


We could not grow older mentally and spiritually if 
we did not grow older physically. 

Youth is a time to accumulate and not to consolidate. 

That plastic and supple period is the time paths are 
opened up through the nervous system and facility gained 
in action. 

But for that very reason we lack during youth physical 
maturity and character. 

The young musician fails to give his hearers the deepest 
satisfaction as much from a lack of physical as of mental 
maturity. 

With the coming of age, the body locks up its forms 
more tightly. 

Of course, if nothing has been done to gain facility 
during youth, the physical system locks up empty. 

If there have been evil practices during youth that 
produce bad tendencies, these remain to torment us. 

Contrariwise, however, if we have acquired facility 
during the formative period in right thought and action, 
increasing age brings with it maturity, strength, and firm- 
ness. 

It is a blessing, therefore, that our bodies grow older. 
@ Bodily changes will bring on the time when one can 
not run as fast as he once did, but he can think faster 
and stay longer at the things most worth-while if he has 
properly grown older. 

Besides, he does not need to run as fast, now that all 
the world gets about on wheels. 


HOW IS THE SOUL MADE? 11s 


We should thank God for the privilege of growing 
mentally and physically older. 

I am distressed to find when their answers grow con- 
fidential that so many smiling faces hide a bitterness of 
heart. 

Many in number are they who missed the way before 
they were fairly started. To them life seems by their 
own confession scarcely worth living. 

Verily, “what and why is man?” is a pressing question 
for our day. 

@ That some of the aged linger for a time after their 
working vitality is gone is no loss to them, nor to their 
friends. 

When the grain is cut and separated from the straw 
at the same time, as is now done by modern machinery, 
something we used to prize is missing; no more ripe 
shocks of wheat beautify the field and gladden the heart 
of man. 

May the time never come when there are no more old 
people to abide for awhile like ripe shocks of grain before 
they are gathered into their Father’s house above. 

Our Edward Everett Hales and Washington Gladdens 
and Lyman Abbotts are ample vindication of the wis- 
dom that permits ripe old age, full of personal satisfaction 
and public benediction, to tarry for awhile after its work- 
ing strength has abated. 

It is a divine wisdom that permits the few to remain 
a little while at last, in the midst of their children 


116 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


and children’s children, to reveal the glory of a ripened 
life. 

The rising generation needs to know men and women 
who have followed the gleam so long that the imprint 
of the light of eternity is beginning to show upon their 
forward-looking faces. 


8. Is DEATH A CursE INFLICTED BECAUSE OF MAN’s 
SIN? 

@ Few things are more certain than that man would have 

died, physically, even if he had never sinned. 

Yet sin’s death-toll is and always has been frightful. 

Wherever sin is, premature death follows in its wake 
in the form of unnecessary accidents, of preventable dis- 
eases, of hunger and poverty, and of wanton crime; to 
say nothing of war! 

Death is often made horrible and cruel ene of sin. 

Flying in the face of this knowledge, men still continue 
to sin, and then blame God for the consequences. 

The consideration of those accidental and premature 
deaths which would occur, even if there were no sin, is 
left for a later chapter. 

@ Were there no sin, death in most cases would be 
comparable to falling asleep peacefully at the close of 
life’s beautiful day. 

In a world without sin, if you can imagine for a moment 
what that would be like, death would not come as gloomy 
night, but like a gorgeous sunset. 

Even as it is, deaths of this happy character are in- 


HOW IS THE SOUL MADE? 117 


numerable. We hear thousands say, “Life has been good, 
but my work here is about done and I shall be glad to 
go home.” 

Without a bit of morbidness about it, Paul was as ready 
for death as a ripe apple is for separation from the tree. 
@ “If Christians believe what they say about heaven, I 
should think they would want to die at once.” 

This familiar taunt sounds full of wisdom to shallow 
minds, but any one that would hasten off to heaven at 
once because there are more “goodies” there than here 
is only fit for some sort of purging fire. 

College is better than high school, but only for those 
who have gone through high school. 

Other things being equal, premature death is a loss. 
No one can enter and enjoy college-heaven circles until 
he has creditably graduated from the high-school-heaven, 
regardless of when he dies. 

Religion as a skeptic understands it, is rarely worthy 
of belief; as the skeptic understands it, it is usually a 
travesty of the views held by an enlightened Christian. 
@ Death is not the curse of sin; sin is the curse of death. 

Death is the natural exit from a lower to a higher 
sphere of life. 

Death has terrors for the living, but none for the 
dying. 

The certainty and universality of death is a powerful 
factor in the making of a staunch, true-blue soul. 

@ When a little boy, I was one day digging in the earth 
when the thought came to me with bewildering force that 


118 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


some day I might die. I stopped digging and ran to my 
mother in breathless haste to ask her if I must surely 
die. And when she replied that I should, I asked, “Will 
they put me in a hole?’ When told that they would put 
my body in the ground, with great difficulty I gasped, 
“H-how, could I b-b-reathe ?” 

@ The knowledge of death made me ask questions deep 
as eternity; and the loss of loved ones has opened foun- 
tains in my soul that otherwise would never have been 
tapped. 

Never has a family existed that has not been affected 
ina thousand ways, for better or worse, by the knowledge 
that death might any day claim one of its number, and 
that sooner or later it would claim them all. 

While death has greatly hurt me, it has wonderfully 
blessed me too and enlarged my soul. 


CHAPTER V 
“WHY DID GOD MAKE MAN AT ALL? 


Is solitary life worth living? 

Without children, could God live a rational 
life? 

Without social relations, could God have char- 
acter? 


With Himself as the Sole Inhabitant of the 
universe, how could God love? 

Did God realize how much suffering having 
a family would cause both Him and them? 


@ We are not belittling God when we say that He needs 
children; that He could not live His own full life without 
them. 

Though our creation was an act of great love, none 
the less was it an act in which God served His own 
interests also. 

It is very important for us to realize the existence of 
this need of God for children because a proper appraise- 
ment of man to which it leads is necessary to a proper 
appraisement of God and the universe. 

God is not great because He is a limitless reservoir of 
passive virtues ; like us, He must be judged by His fruits. 

119 


120 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


God is not good unless He is good for something. 

It was a great and noble act, an act worthy of God, 
to create the universe. 

But if He had made it simply for the pleasure of seeing 
what He could do, and not for the use of moral and 
intelligent beings, then, instead of glorifying, He would 
have stultified Himself. 

For the universe without people to live in it and to turn 
it to spiritual uses, is of no account; and without children 
to share His universe and His plans, God is useless. 

Of course, these conclusions would not hold if it can 

be shown that He is an end in Himself, and that He could 
live happily and worthily in eternal solitude with no 
thought of anyone or anything but Himself. Nothing is 
more certain, however, than that such an idea defames 
God. 
@ There have been periods in the past when men thought 
God capable of finding complete moral and personal satis- 
faction within Himself; and that He would be justified, 
if He so chose, in living a self-centered life throughout 
all eternity. 

One of the principal things that Jesus did was to cor- 
rect this scandalous idea concerning His Father. 

@ Yet, sad to say, that idea refuses to die out, for it is 
still held by many of our contemporaries. 

People not a few survive who belong to the older gen- 
erations which thought that everything God does is of 
“grace,” and not of duty; whereas, every act of God is 
a deed of love and duty. 


WHY DID GOD MAKE MAN AT ALL? tat 


It is a child’s idea that “big folks” can do what they 
please without any regard to others. 

In asserting the contrary of God, we do not mean of 
course, that He has to learn what His duty is by consulting 
us; His sense of duty rises out of His own wisdom and 
love. 

@ We insist on emphasizing how much man needs God, 
but we forget or pass over lightly how much God needs 
man. 

God is not a placid, self-contained sea of bliss; He is a 
Father, with a Father’s need of children, and not only 
a Father’s love, but a Father’s sense of obligation. 

To answer the question, Why did God create man?, we 
only need to consider what God could do or be or how 
He could get on without him. 


t. Is SouiraAry Lire WortH LIvING? 


@ No, not even for God. 

A reasonable measure of solitude is good; but God 
is no more deprived of solitude by living in the midst of 
His children than they are deprived of it by living to- 
gether. 

The solitude of genius, about which we have heard so 
much, is nothing in comparison with the solitude of the 
All-Wise. 

Even when men are most receptive, God is able to 
share with them but an infinitesimal part of His thought. 

He longs to share more; and He will be able to do so 
when we have become wiser and better. 


122 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


It is true that when we are nervous and irritable, or 
numbed by steady contact with others to a low state of 
sensibility, we crave complete isolation for a brief period. 

Yet the charm of our isolation is largely in the fact 
that we have withdrawn a little from something that we 
love; from something to which we may soon return with 
a fresh vigor and new joy, as we return to the exertion 
of toil from the rest of sleep. 

Of eternal solitude, we have not even tasted a sip. 

One moment of isolation which was even thought to 
be eternal, would be a moment of terror; a moment of 
black despair. 

It would be far more bearable for us to live with devils 
than to live absolutely alone forever. 

It is not irreverent to say that God Himself would be 
in despair if He could not create children with whom 
He could live and work. 

@ Intervals of solitude are different. 

Many of us need more spells of solitude than we are 
willing to take; solitude for meditation and prayer, soli- 
tude in which to plan life and work; solitude that is a 
respite from distracting cares. 

Jesus set us a good example in His use of solitude as 
in all other things. 

Wholesome and well-timed solitude gives us a pro- 
founder sense of ourselves and the blessedness of the 
great social life from which we have temporarily with- 
drawn. 

Occasional separation from our friends and interests 


WHY DID GOD MAKE MAN AT ALL? 123 


puts them in a better perspective, and enables us to cor- 
rect many false tendencies that escape us when we are 
engrossed in our work. 

Social service workers require a great deal of solitude; 
a great amount of time for private thinking and planning. 

To superficial people, isolation is simply a weariness 
and a dreariness; but to those who are deeply engrossed 
with things worth while, a little solitude may be sweet as 
balm and profound as eternity. 

For man, restful, meditative solitude is but the comple- 
ment of the social activity which makes his life a rounded 
whole. 

And God, we may believe, is at once the most solitary 
and the most social being in the world. 

If either of these elements indeed were lacking in Him, 
we could not reverence Him as God. 

As God’s children develop, they, too, find that their 
life in solitude deepens as their life in social contact 
widens. 

This is one of the beautiful paradoxes characteristic 
of all deep, rich life. 

Man’s service to God includes more than praise and 
good-will; it means that we are a real help; a kind of 
help without which God would be handicapped at every 
turn of His life. 


2. WitrHouT CHILDREN, CouLD Gop LIvE A RATIONAL 
LIFE? 


@ At first thought, it seems as if God might live a 


124 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


rational life, strictly that and nothing more, even if He 
were perpetually alone. 

He did live a rational life before He created children; 
but that life was rational because it was more than that, 
for He had children in mind in all that He did. 

When God had made the material universe precisely as 
it is, if He could have gone no farther, immediately the 
unwisdom back of His works could not have been con- 
cealed; for there would be no worthy use, on that 
supposition, to which the universe could have been put. 

Without others to share it with Him, the universe 
would have been nothing more than a magnificent toy in 
His hands. 

If it be argued that nevertheless God would have found 
enjoyment in it, we should prefer to do without a God 
rather than to believe in such a God. 

The idea that God could happily amuse Himself through 
eternity with a mammoth toy, carries with it no pleasant 
trains of thought. 

If God had no children, or if He should finally lose 
them all, then anything else that God had done or might 
do would possess no rational significance beyond His own 
entertainment. 

I once heard a prominent college professor say that 
He did not know that God was under any obligation to 
him to preserve his life either here or hereafter. 

The professor was right—if God is simply amusing 
Himself. 

Jesus, however, would have spurned such a conception 


WHY DID GOD MAKE MAN AT ALL? 125 


of God; His Father cared, and felt infinitely obligated 
to look after the welfare of His children. 

The real God, the God of Jesus, needs the professor; 
and before He gets through with him, something much 
too valuable to lose will be made out of him. 

@ God could not continue to live a rational life without 
putting His universe after its making, to its appropriate 
rational and spiritual uses. 

Wonderful as the universe must have been as a spec- 
tacle before it was used, it is infinitely more wonderful 
in use; in use to advance the highest social and spiritual 
ends. 

It is the worst of nonsense to thin\: that God can live 
a truly rational life without children. 

What would be thought of a person who would build 
a great manufacturing plant and when it was done, be 
done himself, never peopling it with operatives? 

Yet such a deed would be a mild form of insanity 
compared with the making of a universe that could be 
put to no use. 

How is it possible for anyone to doubt that God needs 
children to make His own life worth while? 

If God fails us we are lost; and if His children univer- 
sally fail Him, He is ruined. 

One child among so many may seem to us of little 
consequence, but without ones there are no manys. 

To continue to live a rational life God not only needs 
children for company, but children that are increasing in 
wisdom and goodness. 


126 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Therefore, He must not, while we are in the early 
stages of our apprenticeship, cut us off, or permit us to 
perish. 

@ Nor will God ever put this universe to its highest 
uses if His helpers live but for the brief span of this 
life. 

There would be no wisdom in dismissing the skilled 
helpers who have had a generation of training and giving 
the preference to an endless succession of beginners. 

There is no wisdom in repeated rounds without prog~- 
ress; wisdom marches in the direction in which it set out 
and finishes what it begins. 

The moral weight of the universe rests on the shoulders 
of both God and His helpers. This is reason enough 
why God made man at all. 


3. WitrHouT SocraL RELATIONS, CouLtp Gop HAvE 
CHARACTER? 


@ Without social relations, it is difficult to see how God 
could have anything resembling character. 

In the first place, His own life would be rendered use-~ 
less; in the second place, rational life would become im- 
possible for Him. 

If man has not the right of self-mutilation, much less 
has God such a right. 

To prefer perpetual isolation for the sake of ease and 
selfish enjoyment would be much more unworthy of God 
than it is of frail human beings; and it is very sinful for 
them. 


WHY DID GOD MAKE MAN AT ALL? 127 


Goodness through isolation is one of the wicked heresies 
that has too often cursed the church and the race. 

Despite all this, some still think that God could have 
remained good in perpetual solitude and idleness. 

Nothing could be more contrary to the teachings, or 

to the example of Jesus who went about doing good. 
“My Father worketh hitherto and I work. . . . The 
Father in me doeth His works.” 
@ I was introduced to a man once who fawned on me in 
a patronizing way as “a good man,’ and informed me 
that persons employed as I was, and possibly some women, 
might be Christians because we were protected by our 
innocence and isolation; but that red-blooded men like 
himself who lived in the real world and came in contact 
with people who do business and with the rank and file 
of the body social, could not possibly be Christians. 

I told him that any minister who was such a con- 
temptible thing that this description fitted him, deserved 
to be spoken to in such a manner. 

If such ministers exist, they are already damned by 

their imbecility. 
@ The minister worth his salt earnestly grapples with 
the sins of all professions, of all trades, of every social 
strata, with his own temptations in relation thereto; and 
when he is through with these, finds his personal sins 
awaiting his attention. 

He knows the meaning and strain of real life, and 
least of all men deserves to be regarded as a denatured 
man. 


128 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Any minister who has been sheltered from gaining a 
knowledge of the strain and temptations of life, as well 
as its joys, is neither good enough nor wise enough to 
be a minister that any intelligent community would 
want. 

I informed the gentleman who patronized me, that 

such an isolated fool as he had just described had been 
deprived of his chance to become a good man; that there 
is no such thing as goodness apart from red-blooded re- 
lations with men and the world generally; that if only 
he knew it, he himself was by reason of the mixture of 
his contacts with the world in a most favorable position 
to win a good character. 
@ Can anyone conceive of a good God who does not 
mind the fact that He does not know anyone, and who 
has nothing to do consequently with anybody but Him- 
self? 

It is true that some theologians of the past went so 
far as to teach that God could turn His back on the 
whole struggling, sinful race if He desired, and still be 
inexpressibly holy; that to anyone whose parents had 
sinned, His holiness put Him under no obligation; that 
His own glory and pleasure were all that need concern 
Him; that everything beyond stern justice was a conde- 
scending kindness on His part and not a duty. 

Today, we should consider such a God dreadfully 
wicked ; even more wicked than human beings who stand 
aloof from their struggling, sinning, and suffering 
brothers, 


WHY DID GOD MAKE MAN AT ALL? 129g 


@ Destroy vital, personal relations, and opportunity for 
a character is gone. 

Character is companionability, for it means doing the 
right thing by ourselves and others, whoever the others 
may be. 

No greater contempt could be heaped upon God than 
to say that He does not care for His children nor feel 
under obligation to them. 

He would then be more recreant than those delinquent 
parents who are brought before our civil courts for the 
neglect of their children. 

If God were that kind of a being, men would be justi- 
fied in feeling more like hurling curses at Him than offer- 
ing prayers. 

A good man, or a good God, without vital social rela- 
tions! Such a portrait is a burlesque, a travesty. 

Say that children, on the other hand, are necessary to 
God’s own character, and we have a decidedly new sense 
of man’s worth and of the reason why God created him. 


4. WitH HIMSELF AS THE SOLE INHABITANT OF THE 
UNIVERSE, How Coup Gop Love? 


@ Love is commonly regarded as one of the most beau- 
tiful and fundamental attributes of God. “God is love.” 

But could God be love if He had no one to love but 
Himself ? 

Self-love is very proper and beautiful, but he who does 
not love others does not worthily love himself. 

Even if God could have enjoved Himself in perpetual 


130 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


solitude—but that is unthinkable—such enjoyment would 
have been a selfish pleasure and not love. 

Everyone is under obligation to love himself; being his 
Father’s son and his brother’s brother, he is of priceless 
value to them as well as to himself. 

He deserves to be appreciated and treated as well at 
his own hands as God’s other sons. 

Jesus was careful to say that we should love others as 
we love ourselves. . 

Very appropriately, this has been called by everybody 
the “golden rule.” 

I believe that God loves others as He loves Himself, 
and that His self-love is infinite; God strictly keeps the 
golden rule; He is the only one who does keep it per- 
fectly. 

The golden rule came out of the heart of God; and 
without the golden rule in His heart He would not be 
God. 

@ Some folks would have us believe that it is a virtue to 
love others more than self; but this is one of the uncon- 
scious vices of sentimentality. 

True love will sacrifice its immediate comforts and 
even physical life, if necessary, for the well-being of 
others; but to sacrifice the higher self for others would 
be to betray that higher self and to sin both against others 
and one’s self. Things are not run on that plan. 

If Paul’s statement, “I could almost wish myself ac- 
cursed from the presence of God for my brethren’s sake,” 
were not hyperbole, it was decidedly morbid. 


WHY DID GOD MAKE MAN AT ALL? 131 


Just the opposite course was necessary for him to take, 
if he was to be of any use to his brethren. The more 
intelligently he sacrificed for his brethren, the dearer 
would he be to them, to God, and to himself. 

Any sacrifice that does not make your own soul big, 
is either a foolish sacrifice or a sacrifice with a low 
motive. 

@ An anxious wife was trying in my presence to persuade 
her husband to become a Christian. 

He contended that all human choices were based on 
selfishness; that no one acted, even in religion, without 
a selfish motive. 

“Now James,’ 
true.” 

“Yes,” said he, “I am convinced that all conduct in its 
last analysis rests on selfishness.” 

Then they appealed to me to settle the question between 
them. 

“Oh well,’ said I, “I suppose he means enlightened 
selfishness. 

“Enlightened self-interest includes altruism, just as en- 
lightened altruism includes self-interest. 

“We will not find fault with the Lord because he has so 
made us that when we seek the highest good of all, we 
find, all things considered, our own greatest good; we 
could hardly love the Lord or anyone else if things were 
not thus made. 

“Tonorant self-interest is sin both against ourselves and 
others, and makes the true love of either ourselves or 


b] 


said his wife, ““You know that is not 


132 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


others impossible; whereas, the true love of self and the 
true love of others, will make us begrudge no sacrifice that 
is necessary under the circumstances for the highest good 
of all. 

“This is the very reason that Jesus chose to die for the 
world that He loved; in so doing He not only blessed the 
world, but at the same time exalted Himself above every 
other creature. 

“The highest good of all, Himself included, constrained 
Him to decide that it would be better to die than to break 
faith with Himself, His God, and His neighbors.” 

“Oh, of course,” said the man, “I mean enlightened 

selfishness.” 
@ A neighbor came into my home a few weeks after this 
incident and said, “Did you hear Mr. at the mass 
meeting last night? Everybody is wild over the speech he 
made.” 

When I asked what it was all about, she explained 
that the meeting had been called to act upon a proposal to 
make a large appropriation of money for some public en- 
terprise, and that he (this same husband) had spoken so 
impressively in its favor from the standpoint of “Enlight- 
ened Selfishness” that his speech was the talk of the 
town. 

@ There are few subjects on which the public stands 
more in need of sound instruction than the relation be- 
tween genuine altruism and true self-love. 

Nothing less than a crystal-clear sense of values, rest- 
ing on the best knowledge obtainable of how everything 





WHY DID GOD MAKE MAN AT ALL? 133 


is related, and a clearer vision of the true goal of life is 
fitted to serve as an adequate basis for worthy altruism 
or worthy self-love. 

The mind content with low ends and loose relations, 
and with seeing small values in best ‘things, knows not 
the meaning of divine love. 

Sometimes, selfish people under great emotional excite- 
ment will do a generous deed that is surprising ; but when 
the exciting cause of the emotion is gone, all higher sense 
of vision goes too, and naturally they lapse into their 
accustomed selfishness, 

Unless there is a reason for it, there is no occasion for 

being generous. 
@ Since the goals that we set ourselves are usually very 
insignificant and very near at hand, our knowledge of 
how things are related pretty meager, our sense of values 
very faulty, our love at best is little more than the simple 
rudiment of love. 

But because God knows all relations and all goals, and 
because He appreciates best things most, His love is true, 
boundless, and inexhaustible. 

And wherever true love is, it expresses itself in appro- 
priate deeds. 

For the reasons above stated, God’s love is the only 
perfect love; it is the love that cheerfully faces all neces- 
sary pain and sorrow; the love that sees and endures for- 
ever. 

The best we can do, or hope to do, is to follow on 
to know Him who is love. 


134 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


When we know why God loves, and feel the same kind 
of love growing in our hearts, life is transformed from 
top to bottom, from center to circumference. 

That is why an obscure Christian washer-woman will 
give generously out of her hard earnings, and find joy 
over steaming suds; and not knowing why God loves also 
explains why a society belle will become completely ab- 
sorbed in her race for prominence and experience bitter 
heartburnings in her giddy social rounds. 

Divine love is the essence of all true life; and it draws 
all reality to a focus. 


5. Dip Gop ReatizE How Mucwu SuFFERING HAVING 
A FAMILY WouLD CAUSE BotH HIM AND THEM? 


@ Much pain and sorrow would have been avoided if none 
of us had ever been born. 

There is no reason however for thinking that human 
suffering has been a surprise to God. 

Sometimes we hear it said that Jesus knows our sor- 
rows and temptations better than God because He 
lived in the flesh; but in Jesus, God Himself lived in the 
flesh. 

God was perfectly familiar with nerves for untold ages 
before any human being was born; all the suffering of 
the animal world was His to see and feel. 

God made nerves, and knew what He was making. Be- 
fore man came, He was very familiar with the cry of 
pain. He who made nerves knew what they were good 
for as well as how they could hurt. 


WHxy Pi GOD MARE MAN ATS ALL? 135 


A painless world would be neither safe nor joyous. 
Of all this we shall speak in a later chapter. 

We shall only touch upon the query here whether suf- 
fering was a surprise to God, and if not whether it 
should have restrained Him from creating a human 
family. 

There is no reason for thinking that God enjoys pain, 
or that He is indifferent to the suffering either of His 
children or of animals. 

God would equally hold Himself or a man guilty of a 
great crime if wanton pain were inflicted by their agency 
upon man or beast. All necessary suffering has great 
value. But malicious persons may take advantage of 
this capacity to suffer and gratify their lust for cruelty. 
@ Life itself involves a measure of suffering both for 
God and man; and yet, the end of the story more than 
justifies that suffering. 

The inference is not warranted from what has been 
said, that life is a nightmare; for in the present stage of 
our existence, the joyous note rises above the din of sin 
and sorrow. 

As I write, there are many things that cause my heart 
to ache; yet, happy to say, there are more things to make 
me glad. 

Though life at its present stage is good, on the whole 
very good, yet it is no more than a foretaste of what 
it shall yet be. 

@ God does not abandon a good enterprise because of 
any suffering that it may involve. 


136 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Much as we dislike pain, we ourselves gladly undertake 
many things that we know will involve hardships and 
see them through without complaint. 

Before my own children came, I knew that their com- 
ing would bring joys and sorrows; nevertheless I sin- 
cerely wanted them; I felt sure that they would make 
up for all the suffering that might come to them and me. 

The event turned out just as I anticipated; the pain, 
the sorrow, and the joy came by turns; but I am satisfied. 

Because we have rejoiced together and suffered to- 
gether, we are somehow happier and stronger. 

Once a spell of pain has passed, we have always been 
conscious of a richer love and that our hold on life and 
everything that is worth while was firmer. 

It was quite the best thing, I am sure, for me to antici- 
pate the sorrow as well as the joy before my children 
came; instead of being surprised and embittered when 
the suffering came, I was prepared to meet it. 

God, too, must have anticipated, on an infinitely higher 
plane, the joy and the suffering incident to having a 
family. 

Although He knew from the beginning that life in- 
volved a measure of suffering, yet for that reason alone 
He could not refuse us existence and leave Himself for- 
ever childless, isolated, and defeated. 

Companionship with the divine thing called a soul 
was of such priceless value to God and would be to these 
souls themselves, once they were created, that nothing 
short of anticipated apostasy from Him, final and com- 


WHY DID GOD MAKE MAN AT ALL? 137 


plete, could have deterred Him from creating the human 
family. 

@I have often felt like sheltering my children from 
the hard circumstances that are necessary for the making 
of a soul; and yet in my deepest heart, I do not want 
the kind of children that can be too easily made; I have 
seen too many of the “easily made” kind to think well of 
the method. 

Suffering with no legacy of blessing to show for it is 
a calamity, but suffering that helps us to know, to love, 
and to get a firmer grasp on reality is a great blessing. 

Life that is of the right quality, that is Godlike, is 
worth any price that may be put upon it. 

@ Of course, those who think of God as cold and remote, 
as one who is enjoying Himself far apart while His chil- 
dren cry and suffer, naturally feel bitter toward Him. 

@ If I shared their idea of God with them, I too should 
feel bitter. 

Let those who cling to such a false and contemptible 
view of God go to Jesus and learn a totally opposite view 
of what their Father is like; let them go to school also 
with Paul and learn through heroic suffering and faithful 
service that God goes to prison, to the executioner’s 
block, and to the cross with every son and daughter who 
dies for His and for the world’s sake. 

God asks His children to go nowhere that He is not 
already present and waiting to share with them His pain 
and glory if they will come. 

@ Occasional suffering for every one of us, as we our- 


138 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


selves can see, is valuable because it makes us feel His 
special nearness. 

Nowhere else can God get quite so near to us as in 
our deepest sorrow. 

Suffering for suffering’s sake should never be sought, 
for if we live as true sons and daughters, enough of it 
will fall to our lot in the common events and duties of 
life. 

Blind, selfish suffering is indescribably sad, and alto- 
gether unnecessary if we are willing to be taught in the 
school of Jesus. 

@ It is not difficult to understand how a sinful, untaught, 
and stricken soul might fall under such a cloud of sorrow 
as to desire extinction itself; and it is not surprising 
to see such a soul pass from under the cloud and thank 
God for the horrifying shadow that drove him to the 
dazzling light that now bursts upon his wondering gaze. 

In a world like ours, all these things occur; and the 
mature Christian knows why. 

@ Our worshipful adoration should go out to the God 
who made us to be the companions of His suffering and 
the heirs of His glory. 

We congratulate all mankind on its membership in 
God’s family; on the glorious end thus set before them 
to be achieved; on their rich fellowship with kindly 
brothers and a loving Father in an enterprise vast as the 
universe and long as eternity. 

God lures us, and necessity spurs us, to move onward 
and upward along the paths that lead to a social order 


WHY DID GOD MAKE MAN AT ALL? 139 


where each shall live for all and all shall live for each; 
where swine pens and husks shall be no more in God’s 
fair world. 

In that day, which is coming, we shall exclaim, “How 
amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of multitudes!’ 
@ What is man? He is the son of the Highest. 

Why did God create him? That he might have 
dominion over the works of His hands; that he might 
love and be loved; that he might be a co-worker with his 
Father, in the upbuilding and maintenance of a glorious 
and everlasting kingdom. 

Man was created in order that he might fulfill God's 
life, his own life, and the life of his neighbor. 


CHAPTER ivr 
WHY WERE WE NOT BORN IN HEAVEN? 


Was any one ever born in heaven? 

Would a perfect heaven be a good place in 
which to begin life? 

Is this earth an ideal place in which to begin 
life? 

Was a soul, bound by no genealogical ties to 
nature, ever created apart from nature? 
If God has dealt fairly with us, why do we 

complain of our lot? 


@ Some think that God has Angel-children who were 
born in His highest heaven. 

Then why were we discriminated against? Why were 
we required to pass through this sinful, sorrowful world 
if others were spared such an experience? 

@ We once thought that all suffering was either due to 
man’s sin, or else it was caused by the evil work of devils. 

Nothing unpleasant, with the exception of the unpleas- 
antness connected with just punishment, ever came from 
God. 

Consequently, before man sinned, the earth was a 

140 


WHY WERE WE NOT BORN IN HEAVEN? 141 


perfect paradise. Before God cursed the earth and the 
race for the sinfulness of the first man and woman, 
there were no weeds, no briers, no fierce animals, no 
sickness, no sorrow, no death. 

If this were true, then Adam and Eve were born in 
what might very appropriately be called a heaven; and 
it was not God’s original intention that any of us should 
be born in a world of suffering. 

@ But there are a thousand reasons for believing that the 
earth never was such a paradise. 

Millions of years before man appeared, earth was the 

abode of fierce carnivorous animals, and the scene of 
sickness, pain, and death; there were going on in it de- 
structive earthquakes, terrific cyclones, and devastating 
floods. 
@ It makes a most unlikely story to say that God would 
curse the earth and all the billions of people that were 
to be born upon it because Adam and Eve disobeyed Him 
in a single act. 

The Christian sense of justice openly insists that God 
should have settled the account with Adam and Eve 
alone. 

If they had proved themselves unfit to be the progeni- 
tors of the race, they might have been deposed firs! and 
then disposed of in any way that the Lord thought best, 
and a new pair created that would beget an angelic race 
worthy to inhabit the Eden Home which this theory 
claims the earth was in the beginning. 

@ All this, however, is beside the mark, for whether or 


142 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


not God has angel-children in heaven who never knew 
what suffering was like, it is certain that life on this 
earth always included suffering apart from sin. 

Sin, beyond all doubt, adds other suffering of its own. 

The old explanations of our sufferings that laid them 
all at the door of sin were an honest effort to vindicate 
the character of God; and so far, they were worthy. 

But now we see that such mistaken explanations injure 
rather than vindicate His character. 

That does not change our admiration for these noble 
men who toiled to lift men’s thought of God from lower 
to higher ethical levels through the ages. 

Their conception of a God that was good and kind 
was a marvelous advance over the thought current in 
their times of malevolent gods. 

Only by doing some pioneering work of our own with 
the same thoroughness, and in the same spirit that they 
did theirs, shall we make ourselves their worthy heirs. 


I. Was Any ONE EveEerR Born IN HEAVEN? 


@ Did any one ever grow up where there was no suffer- 
ing, no temptation, no sin? We are not Gods to know 
all, but the more we learn of this universe, the more im- 
probable it becomes that any one was ever born in a 
place where he could grow to maturity with no knowledge 
of sin and sorrow. 

In my youth, I often heard it preached that angels were 
beings who had spent all their existence with God in 
heaven where they had no knowledge of sin and death; 


WHY WERE WE NOT BORN IN HEAVEN? 143 


that these pure beings listened to the story of sin and 
redemption as to something foreign, with a mystified 
awe; that they were capable and trusty messengers whom 
God could safely send to earth, or anywhere else, on 
teaching missions, on errands of mercy, or on punitive 
errands of destruction. 

When I was a boy the grown-ups around me thought 
that in olden times angels frequently came to earth in 
visible form. But if they did, they appear to have ceased 
doing so long ago. 

At the present time, many people believe that angel 
spirits still come in an invisible way to earth. 

There are those who think that, in addition to visita- 
tions which they receive from good and bad angels, the 
spirits of their departed loved ones return to communi- 
cate with them. 

I am heartily in favor of investigating all spiritualistic 
phenomena, but the more I study spiritualism the less I 
believe in it. 

I find it very hard to believe, with such evidence as 
we have, that spirits, good or bad, ever came from other 
worlds to comfort or tempt people on earth. 

What we all do know is that the memories of our 
departed loved ones are so deeply part and parcel of our- 
selves as to make them a very powerful factor in our 
lives. 

They are none the less dear and influential because they 
are separated from us. 

Even Jesus told His disciples that it was better for 


144 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


them that He should go away; and assured them that if 
He did go away, the spirit of God working in their hearts 
would teach them over again all that He had taught them. 

In proof of this is the well-established fact that the 
words of Jesus spoken on earth did a more powerful 
work in the disciples’ hearts after their Master’s death 
than they did before. 

How often the same thing has proved true of some 
wife or mother after her going. 

@ Every intelligent person, regardless of the place in 
which he begins to live, is simply a child of God and a 
brother of all other intelligent beings. 

And to begin life higher up than the very beginning, 
even if such a thing were possible, would be a mis- 
fortune. 

There is no reason for doubting that many intelligent 
beings have begun their existence elsewhere than on this 
earth, considering the nature and vastness of the ma- 
terial universe. 

But it is not likely that any of them ever sprang into 
fullness of life in a single birth moment. 

Or that they achieved character without more or less 
temptation and struggle. 

Everything we know cries out against the possibility 

and desirability of such a thing. 
@ Furthermore, it is reasonable to suppose impartiality 
has ruled and that all of God’s children have been given 
the great privilege of a beginner’s chance; if not, they 
have missed something. 


WHY WERE WE NOT BORN IN HEAVEN? 145 


To begin life with a finished character, in a finished 
home, would appear to be little short of an intellectual 
and moral calamity. 

No chance to take part in the making of one’s self 
and no opportunity to share in the making of the place 
in which one lives, are the last things imaginable to be 
desired. 

If the universe contains those who have been compelled 

to live such a life, they deserve our profound sympathy, 
if not our pity. 
@I do not think that the book of Revelation, rightly 
understood, undertakes to throw light on the heavenly 
home awaiting us beyond; but if it does, then a war. 
which it describes in heaven makes the recent world 
war look in comparison like children playing with fire 
crackers. 

For, according to it, Michael and his angels fought 
the devil and his angels and cast them out of heaven; 
and a great red dragon drew a third of the stars of heaven 
with his tail and cast them down to earth. 

Even without taking this record as a literal description 

of the sins and wars occurring in heaven, we may feel 
certain that character was never won by anybody with- 
out effort. 
@ Notwithstanding millenniums of civilization have im- 
proved conditions on earth for those who are favorably 
situated, yet all our children still find it a good stiff 
proposition to win a character. 

For, though civilization offers great advantages, at the 


146 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


same time it offers a thousand forms of temptation to 
the inexperienced, not known to primitive society. 

Wherever beginners are experimenting there will 
doubtless be some failures, and evil will develop side by 
side with the good. 

This earth will never be the permanent home of those 
who were born here, for it is only a seed bed in which 
to begin life. 

The same thing is likely true of any other place where 
life has ever begun. 

It is not likely that anyone, anywhere, was ever born in 
his final dwelling place. 

It is more reasonable and agreeable to suppose that all 
people who are born in this universe begin as we did, 
run a natural course of life, and at death will be trans- 
ferred to such environments as will best suit their moral 
achievements. 

In comparison with what our race has made of this 
earth home, probably there are many places in this uni- 
verse, by this time, which would seem to us perfect and 
finished; the likelihood is also strong, however, that no 
place nor any heaven will ever be completely finished. 

Through all eternity, as the children of God advance, 
their heavens will keep step and deepen, widen, and im- 
prove. 

The grounds of expectation that this may be true set 
before us for our encouragement the most attractive 
vision and the noblest hope. 


WHY WERE WE NOT BORN IN HEAVEN? 147 


2. WovuLpD A PERFECT HEAVEN Be A Goop PLACE IN 
WuicuH To Becin LIFE? 
@ I do not think so. 

If it were possible, it would not be well to be a man 
who had not gone through childhood, to be a sage who 
had not had to struggle his way up as a pupil, nor to be 
a saint who had been excused from any and all acquaint- 
ance with temptation and sin. 

The best place to begin is at the beginning. 

A perfect heaven would make a poor starting place; 
it would be quite too far advanced. ' 

To settle newly created beings in the highest heaven 
would be dangerous; they would soon do something fool- 
ish and dreadful. 

A heaven in which he could not get hurt would give 
a child no chance at all. 

Of nothing can you learn the full meaning until you 
gain acquaintance with its opposite. 

A child’s fondness for its mother has little more 
meaning than its fondness for candy until the child 
learns that “love suffereth long and is kind.” 

Cruel hate is the proper background for profound 
appreciation of love, discord for discerning the peaceful- 
ness of harmony, sorrow for tasting the blithesomeness 
of joy, weakness for sensing the ardor of strength, and 
death for feeling the exhilaration of life. 

No place that afforded an opportunity for learning these 


148 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


things could be in the state of heaven, as we think of it, 
but would be simply this life over again. 

Conversely, any place that did not furnish beginners 

a chance to learn these contrasts, whether called heaven 
or by any other name, would doom them to an insipid 
life in a foundling’s home. 
@ When we sigh for the privilege of beginning life in 
a place from which all suffering and sin is walled out, 
one filled with things only pretty and pleasant, we know 
not what a dreadful thing it is that we wish. 

God is too good to make His beginners sick on too 
much heaven because they cry for it; and too wise to let 
them degrade a heaven which has been built up by ages 
of toil and care by settling them in it at the start. 

This is not to say that sin is good or that pain is 
pleasant; but it is to say that goodness is real only 
when it has repelled sin, and that happiness is joy only 
after we have banished that which causes suffering. 

Not to complain of our lot, but to set about improving 
it, is the part of wisdom. 


3. Is Tuis EartH AN IDEAL PLACE IN WHICH TO 
Brcin LIFE? 


@ If we are to be made fit to live forever, I am thor- 
oughly convinced that there could be no better place 
than this earth in which to begin. 

If we are to become like Jesus and God our Father, 
then this earth, or some place like it, affords us our best 
chance. 


WHY WERE WE NOT BORN IN HEAVEN? 149 


In a world like this we find reality in its rawest form; 
we find the meaning of things nearest the surface. 

In a world like this, the meaning of desires and the 
consequences of sin are most easily and quickly learned. 
@ Though I have gone through many rigorous experi- 
ences and have learned some pieces of wisdom pretty 
thoroughly, yet I have often noticed that when things 
become too easy and pleasant for me, I begin to degen- 
erate. 

Success is relative, and some would think that I have 
not had overmuch of it, yet I have had about all the 
prosperity that I could turn to profit. 

Some may learn the meaning, the value, and the right 
use of things in a comparatively easy school, but I can 
not; I need to be hurt a good deal before I find the deeper 
meaning to many sides of life. 

My experience with those who have had an easy time is 
not reassuring; I always find them lacking in something 
greatly to be desired. 

The difference in results, between taking easy lessons 
and hard lessons in the school of life on earth is well 
worth the difference in price. 

@ True, many people appear to be harmed or even ruined 
by suffering; but some people let themselves be injured 
by anything and everything. 

They have never caught the real meaning of life, that 
is their trouble; they think that the thing to do is to get, 
to be made comfortable, and to be amused—seeking their 
ease as the chief thing; even that they fail to find. 


150 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


We were put here to find meaning upon top of meaning 
to life, and the pleasures and sorrows incident to our 
environments are well suited to that end. 

Even Jesus, with His superior endowments and the 
incomparable voluntariness of His will to learn, found 
suffering as well as happiness a means of perfecting His 
life. 

Suffering is not the main thing, but it is an undertow 
that helps to draw us into the mighty deep of God’s life. 

God Himself would be imperfect if He did not know 
the meaning of suffering. 

Once again we say, suffering should never be sought 
for its own sake; that is unnecessary, for if we do not 
break faith with God and men, plenty of it will fall to 
our lot that is not of our seeking. 

@ It is a pleasure for me to testify that all necessary suf- 
fering, which I have borne in a Christian way, has 
brightened and gladdened my life. 

Because of that course of training, when I listen to 
grand oratorio, I can hear the clashing forces of right 
and wrong, of joy and sorrow, of hope and despair; I 
can hear the note of victory rising high and clear above 
all discord until I feel safe and satisfied; I have the key 
to what it all means, the hatefulness of the evil and 
the loveliness of the good, and am confident of the vic- 
torious outcome. The harmonious sounds mean some- 
thing more to me than mere harmonious sounds; they 
mean the strain of a vast life bursting into more lovely, 


WHY WERE WE NOT BORN IN HEAVEN? 151 


satisfying life; the life that we are already beginning to 
live, and the greater fullness of life for which we pray. 

It means rich reward to know that suffering has made 
one glad and rich, and full of imperishable hope. 

In so far as we have learned our life lesson, the same 
experience comes to us whichever way we turn. 

We may turn to music, to art, to education, to the his- 
tory of civilization, or to our own small personal world; 
but wherever we take our soundings, deep final harmony 
and sure victory is the report that comes up from the 
deeps as the end of the tragedy, the love, the hate, the 
hope connected with life’s beginnings. 

@ After all our losses and crosses, not simply does life 
remain, but it has been greatly enriched and all things 
become ours in a better and larger way than ever before. 

It is infinitely better to rise to heaven through a rea- 
sonable amount of struggle and pain, than to fall from 
heaven by reason of too much ease and pleasure; it is 
better to win heaven through much tribulation than to 
settle down in a fool’s paradise. 


4. Was A SoOuL, Bounp By No GENEALOGICAL TIES TO 
NATURE, EVER CREATED APART FROM NATURE? 
@ It is not likely that any soul was ever created apart 
from nature. 
Every life is doubtless a user of energy and therefore 
must be planted in energy; it must be planted in God 
whose energy is the substance of all things. 


152 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


And if a soul begins and remains enmeshed in God's 
organized and ever organizing energy, then it begins in 
what we call nature and in nature it must forever remain. 

God Himself does not live apart from His own energy, 
but forever expresses Himself in it and through it. 

Nature may assume many forms, it may undergo many 
refinements, but it must remain nature forever in dis- 
tinction from the self-conscious Will that projects it in 
time and space. 

God as Mind and Energy is doubtless the ground and 
environment of every individual life, no matter what its 
location. 

If this be true, then every personal life has a visible 
beginning in the ties that bind it to what we call nature. 

If God Himself does not sever all ties and separate 
Himself from His cosmic energy, how could a soul be 
born separate and apart, and live? 

@ While there is endless variety in the universe as we 
have already said, nevertheless, underneath is a similarity 
also that runs through it all. 

How could it be otherwise if everything is composed 
in the last analysis of larger or smaller bundles of the 
energy that comes from God. 

However diverse the forms with which they are asso- 
ciated, however different their appearances, yet in reality 
all souls must be much the same in constitution. Doubt- 
less all finite life has been developed from what might 
be called seed; and all seed is planted in and draws its 


WHY WERE WE NOT BORN IN HEAVEN? 153 


growth from the universe store of the cosmic energy 
which God supplies from His own person. 

The story of life everywhere must be similar if it is 
life like in kind to that of God and of us. 

God is not divided against Himself; He is not running 
a multiverse, but a universe; however He may differen- 
tiate the parts, they do not cease to be parts of the whole 
and closely related to one another. 

@ The creation of a spirit anywhere could hardly have 
been a first step; but the crowning act of innumerable acts 
that went before and led up to it. 

As there was a marvelous preparation for the awaken- 
ing of our spirits, so we reason there must have been 
for all spirits. 

When a spirit first wakes to consciousness there must 
be the groundwork of space-filling energy beneath him, 
above him, and about him if he is to live and grow. 

An angel spirit in a vacuum would be a stupid spirit; 
and if he were bound by no connecting links with the 
universe, would he not be in a vacuum? 

All spirits, I dare to believe, find that their very exist- 
ence depends upon unbroken contact with some form of 
God’s universe store of energy. 

If there are spirits who never lived on earth, none the 
less, they must have begun their existence in that universe 
of which the earth is a part. 

This means that they must have had, like ourselves, 
a very humble beginning; they must have developed grad- 


154 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


ually through some effort of their own as well as by the 
help of God; but that their first knowledge of God must 
have come through active forces of God which forced 
themselves upon their acquaintance. 

@ When we wish to get away from the universe, we un- 
wittingly desire to get away from “the everlasting arms.” 

The more I see of nature the more convinced I am 
that it is one great multifarious energy side of God 
Himself. 

Instead of wishing to get away from it, I long to re- 
main in it that I may help to transform it by extending 
my connections with it into one great multifarious energy 
side of me and all my brothers; that God and all of us 
working together may make of it a heavenly home, in 
which and through which God and all His children may 
become one happy family. 

Nature does not veil God, it unveils Him. 

In the light with which the spirit of God illuminates 
our hearts, nature becomes the face of God. 

As long as a shred of the universe remains to me, I 
shall cling to it as the ground of my existence, and as the 
hand of a loving Father extended to me. 

If in respect to anything this attitude should seem 
offensive, it is simply because, in my opinion, the person 
finding it so does not rightly conceive of God; he has 
stripped Him of His great attribute of Almighty Energy. 

God is in nature now, and always will be. 

If God should cease to be in nature, He would cease 
to be in His own energy; and if nature should cease to 


WHY WERE WE NOT BORN IN HEAVEN? 155 


be, God would allow one of His infinite attributes to re- 
main dormant. 

@ It is for this reason that all personal life begins in 
nature, continues in nature, and will forever remain in 
nature. 

I do not claim that God has no power left, over and 
above the energy stored in the visible universe; for His 
spirit is able to quicken our spirits and to make nature 
progressive by reshaping it forever. 

It is impossible for me to believe in anything less or 
to hope for anything better. 

Though we have had to become familiar with struggle 
and pain, yet I can not believe that God is guilty of 
favoritism; or that any other group of His children has 
fared better unless they have lived better in the presence 
of temptation. 

All suffering that is not due to sin, performs a useful 
part in the making of a life. 

And like all good parents, God willingly consents to 
suffer with His children to any extent that is necessary 
for their good. 

Some parents amaze me by speaking of one child as 
their favorite. 

Such parents are beyond my comprehension. The way- 
ward and disappointing child can not give the same satis- 
faction, of course, but he is not loved less by true par- 
ents; like the defective or unfortunate child, he draws 
heavily upon their thought and compassion. 

We may be sure that His children who are in His 


156 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


most beautiful heaven are beloved of God, but that He 
loves, not less, His ragged children in the slums of our 
cities; and that He will suffer with them until they are 
exalted to His highest heaven. 


5. Ir Gop Has Deatt Farrty with Us, Way Do WE 
CoMPLAIN OF OurR Lot? 


@ Not everyone does; many of the greatest sufferers do 
not complain. 

Sometimes we find the most cheerful and generous 
souls among those who are greatly afflicted. 

While some of us complain too much, others of us 
are too much contented; we do little or nothing to make 
conditions better for ourselves and others. 

A noble, uncomplaining discontent is a religious virtue. 

We should not be satisfied with past efforts nor with 
past conditions. 

A Christian’s lot yesterday may have been all right 
for yesterday, but it is not all right for tomorrow. 

The future must be a bright new edition of the past. 

This divine, forward-looking spirit would be one im- 
possible to sustain if our lot could not be improved. 

Those who insist that they ought to be allowed to settle 
down into soft nests are the ones who become the chronic 
complainers. 

No position that we have yet attained, or that we ever 
shall acquire, is a safe resting place. 

All have hard circumstances to contend with occasion- 


WHY WERE WE NOT BORN IN HEAVEN? 157 


ally, and some find life hard most of the time; yet much 
of the world’s suffering is simply a state of mind. 

Nothing has yet happened to us that we could not 
bear, but we feel sure that sometime something will. 

Some people brood over the world’s suffering until 
that brooding makes them themselves weak and miserable ; 
thus do these miserable brooders, of all people, do least 
to make the world better; they get a certain satisfaction 
from brooding and find fault with God and things in 
general. 

Those who do most to improve the lot of mankind 
almost invariably are the ones who have the finest faith 
in God and the deepest confidence in their fellow men. 

@ Many of the human race do suffer beyond all that is 
reasonable and right from misfortunes for which some- 
body is to blame. 

We should find out who it is, or what it is, that causes 
this unnecessary suffering and then devise a cure for it 
that will work. 

God is vastly more displeased with much of that kind 
of suffering than are we. 

But until we repent or mend our ignorance, as the 
case may be, or unless God exterminates many of us, 
the suffering due to injustice and oppression must go 
on. 

Partly through ignorance, but much more through 
greed and self-aggrandizement, men have helped to make 
life harder than was necessary for their fellows. 


158 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


I do not mean to imply that all are equally guilty, the 
difference in guilt is tremendous; yet all of us may be 
more guilty than we suspect. 

Relatively good people often take a very shortsighted 
view of life and the common good and, therefore, of 
their duty in this matter. 

It is surprising, also, to find how many cynical hearts 
are hidden behind smiling faces. 

Any cynicism is an outward sign of the presence within 
of an overload of the virus of selfishness. 

We would all do well to examine our own hearts and 

our methods of living and doing business before we 
become bitter toward God for the life that He leads 
men. 
@ Just now, the sad plight of the world seems to afford 
more ample ground than usual for sorrow and complaint; 
but by our complaining attitude toward God, as if He 
were to blame, we shall not succeed in shifting the re- 
sponsibility from where it belongs. 

It is because our eyes are closed, our ears are stopped, 
and our hearts are cold that we fail to set about the 
removal of the chief sorrows of the world. 

When they are not engaged in funmaking, in mischief, 
or in seeking selfish ends, many people become like little 
children crying in the dark. 

They complain because they think their returns in 
pleasure are not commensurate with their deserts; they 
are discouraged because some prize just slipped through 
their fingers; they are confused, battered, and defeated 


WHY WERE WE NOT BORN IN HEAVEN? 159 


at the beginning of the game because they have never 
grasped the true meaning of life. 

As soon as they begin to reap the fruits of their 
wrong sowing, life, they tell themselves, is getting hard, 
and then bitterness enters their hearts. 

They suppose that they are becoming disillusioned and 
proving that life is a failure. 

When the world gets in a tangle, when hope fades, and 
unfulfilled desires increase, then something is wrong; 
very much wrong—within. 

Just now, the world that is within men stands des- 
perately in need of instruction; it needs a new mind, a 
new heart, a new goal. 

And unless the inner world hastens to get them, the 
world without will for a long time be a world of 
gloom. 

Absorption in our accumulated knowledge, new and 
vast in so many fields, blinds us to the fact that we are 
not wise concerning life itself. 

Unless we speedily give more attention and deeper 
study to life, we shall get lost and starve in the labyrinth 
of mechanical knowledge. 

A considerable portion of society is lost already; it 
is running to and fro without getting anywhere other 
than deeper into the jungle from which it is vainly trying 
to escape. 

All that our splendid new knowledge, and our effort to 
apply it, is doing for many of us is causing us to neglect 
utterly the determination of the real mission life is for, 


160 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


and without that we shall move straight forward to sor- 
row and defeat. 

@ Life, right life, is the simplifier and unifier of all 
things. 

Without the kind of life that Jesus came to give in 
abundance, we can not safely go on growing larger and 
more complex individually and socially. 

There is too much downright indifference among us as 
to what life means; as to which goal is the right one, or 
whether there is need of any goal at all beyond immediate 
personal advantage. 

@ Is it real living to live simply to be comfortable and 
satisfied ? 

Or are we to live for something more remote, perhaps, 
but more gloriously worth striving for? 

Who knows? Who can tell us? 

@I believe that Jesus lived and died for the true goal 
of life. 

Sometimes we who profess to follow Him have caught 
glimpses of it, but we have usually made it, even so, 
too small for the world in which we live and for a future 
toward which we move. 

All things are ours by divine right, and we are more 
than welcome to them; we can have them for the taking 
if we take them for a right purpose and with a right 
motive. 

@ Every generation should go to school with Jesus and 
study its new problems with Him. 

But instead, many prefer the too exclusive company 


WHY WERE WE NOT BORN IN HEAVEN? 161 


of people like themselves; companions who share with 
them the same wrong mind and allegiance to the same 
false goal. 

All hands who belong to such a company soon convince 
themselves that they are the only wise people; that 
others are innocents, or unfortunates, or knaves. 

They tell one another that all life is a gamble, but that 
it is the part of wisdom to learn the rules by which the 
winners play the game and try for the stakes. 

This is one of the prolific causes of suffering on earth. 

A nation of gamblers, each regarding human lives as 
dice, naturally carries its gambling methods into inter- 
national relations, and in the end the whole race is sucked 
into the maelstrom. 

@ Many of us are neither fit nor safe for a better world 
than this; we do too much injury here. 

Our Father is too wise to put us where we might tear 
down and utterly ruin the work of saints and sages that 
required millions of years to accomplish. 

When we consider the present social, economic, political, 
and international world discord, no wonder we think our 
lot is hard; and no less wonder God thinks us unsafe 
for heaven until we have acquired a little more wisdom 
and character through painful experiences. 

Unless we mend our ways a good deal, our next lot 
is not likely to be any better than this, and may be much 
worse; for I dare say that God has a suitable proving 
ground for each one of us until our promotion would 
be safe. 


162 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


q All this, however, is only one side of the picture; 
There are millions on earth who are glad to cast in their 
lot with struggling, suffering humanity. 

They know that this is the place where they should be 
for the present. 

Their eyes are open, their ears are unstopped, their 
hearts are illuminated with the warm love of God. 

Those who constitute this great company know and 
love one another, they love all mankind; even their ene- 
mies. 

They meet often and speak one to another, they gather 
about their Master, they study His teachings, they imitate 
His life, they assimilate His love, they visualize His king- 
dom, they feed the hungry, they comfort the sorrowful, 
and for the prize that is set before them, they despise 
their own suffering and the shame of the cross which a 
blind and wicked element in the world compels them to 
bear. 

In short, the one thing they do not do, is to complain 
of their lot on earth; but gladly accept as that lot a 
commission to help lift mankind to those levels where 
reigneth love and righteousness. 


CHAR TE Rav LT 


DOES GOD CAUSE EARTHQUAKES AND 
CYCLONES? 


Why does God cause violent disturbances in 
nature? 


Why does He send pestilences? 


Why did God make nature ‘Red in tooth and 
claw’? 


Why does God permit the innocent and help- 
less to suffer? 

Is it right that children should suffer for the 
sins of their parents? 

If God sees all human suffering, how can He 
be happy? 

Why does God permit the bad to prosper and 
the good to fail? 


@ Unless we hold God responsible for everything in the 

tealm of nature, it is difficult to see how He can be 

credited with being the cause of anything therein. 
Whether nature is the continuous movement of God’s 

energy, as I believe, or something which He endowed 

with power to run of itself, makes no difference here. 
In either case, earthquakes, cyclones, and other catas- 

163 


164 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


trophes would be included in, and their happening accord 
with, His plan. 

It is conceivable, and the supposition is no trouble at 
all to our minds, that all necessary changes could be made 
to take place gradually; that God could keep the jerks 
and jolts out of nature if He so elected. 

Either He can not prevent these startling and destruc- 
tive occurrences, or else He does not condemn them nor 
wish to prevent them. 

Accordingly, as Christians, we are compelled to justify 
God by reason or by faith for everything that happens 
in nature; and this has to be done by us quite regardless 
of whether we are old-fashioned or new-fashioned in our 
theology. 

@ Christians admit neither weakness nor evil to enter 
into their thought of God. 

No one has the presumption to assume that he is wise 
enough to justify the ways of God in His creation entirely 
by reason alone; faith has as large and as legitimate a 
place in the domain of religion as it has in science. 

Whatever be the field of investigation, faith leads to 
knowledge, and added knowledge opens the way to more 
faith. 

If there were no knowledge, there would be no faith, 
and vice versa. 

As things are, reason, and reasonable faith together, 
can go a long ways toward justifying God in a world 
like ours. 

And it is not only permissible, but it is a duty to line 


EARTHQUAKES AND PESTILENCES 16s 


up all the satisfying reasons we can in explanation of 
the hard experiences of life. 


1. Wuy Doers Gop CAusE VIOLENT DISTURBANCES IN 
NATURE? 


@ Flowers bloom and earthquakes shake whether man is 
present or absent. 

It is not necessary to suppose, therefore, that the cy- 
clone was designed of God as a weapon that might be 
hurled at some one with whom He is displeased; nor 
earthquakes to shake his house down over his head. 

Whether or not these violent physical changes could 
be dispensed with in the further evolution of the earth, we 
know at least that in past ages such violent changes have 
not been a dead loss, for they have wrought most wonder- 
ful and beneficent results. 

The shallow water with which they have covered con- 
tinents has fostered life in great abundance and many 
varieties. 

By lifting submerged continents above sea level, they 
have forced aquatic animals to make the change and 
become land animals. 

By uprearing mountains on the plains, they have set 
the rivers of water and the rivers of life flowing in new 
directions to the great advantage of man. 

They have created beautiful scenery; they have left 
rich deposits of ores and precious metals within mining 
distance of the surface; they have enriched the earth with 
layers of sediment and drift fit for the plow; they have 


166 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


exposed to human gaze the records of life from its 
simplest beginnings. 

@] Volumes might be written on the beneficent results of 
violent physical changes. 

Enough is known concerning the great cataclysms of 
earth to enable us to see how they have been a powerful 
factor in world-building. 

What they have wrought was absolutely necessary work 
that had to be done, whether or not it could have been 
accomplished in some other way. 

The only moral question is, could these beneficent 
changes have been made without the attending loss of 
life and discomfort to man and beast, or are there ways 
in which these features were turned to good account 
also? 

For God has purposes beyond mere world-building: 
world-making is only incidental to soul making; and it 
may take rougher measures to make a soul fit to live in 
social relations than we have realized. 

@ A right kind of world for the making of souls must 
be both gentle and terrible. 

The wisdom of God’s methods of world-building must 
be judged, finally, by the total of their effects in the 
spiritual realm. 

It must not be forgotten that nature in all its moods 
and tenses grateful to us is less than a full expression of 
God. 

A terrific display of force now and then is as necessary 


EARTHQUAKES AND PESTILENCES 167 


to a full revelation of God as it is necessary to make 
needed changes in the earth. 

Because man can use and deny himself the use of 
explosives, even he develops greater moral strength than 
he would if limited to dominion over the quiet, steady 
energies alone. 

Our Father is as gentle as a sunbeam and as terrible 
as an earthquake, and it is very important that we should 
know that He is both. 

@ Yet God is by no means a vindictive Being who sits 
on the rim of the universe and hurls destructive forces 
at His offending children. 

He lets the rain and the thunderbolt fall on the just 
and the unjust alike if they are in the path of the storm; 
and if no one was there, He would send the storm and 
the thunderbolt on their errands just the same. 

He is not making war, He is making a universe, and 
a family worthy to possess it and safe to use it. 

Violent movements occur when the conditions are ripe 
for them; just as a building falls with a crash when the 
center of gravity is no longer supported. 

No new forces are employed; the fall only reveals the 
energy that was impounded in the building all the time; 
energy that became a rushing outward current when the 
stabilizing energy of the foundation was removed. 

Terrific storms occur and perform useful functions on 
the sun where no life exists, that would wreck the human 
race were earth the scene of their like. 


168 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


@ As for myself, I should not wish to live in a universe 
where the awe-inspiring was entirely eliminated ; for even 
in this world where terrifying events every now and 
again come to pass, they stop this side of coercion and 
the souls of men are never driven into making God their 
refuge. 

From infancy, our eyes dilated and our hearts ex- 
panded not at the sight but at the news of dreadful 
happenings. 

Our highest good made the knowledge of such terrific 
forces absolutely necessary lest we forget that we are 
to be held to stern and serious account for the lives we 
lead. 

These thrilling stories left a spiritual deposit of whole- 
some awe and reverence in our hearts more precious than 
the gold that has been deposited in the crevices of moun- 
tain rock by the terrific upheavals of the earth. 

These stories furnished and set up trains of thought, 
bracing to the sense of dependence upon God, that became 
the warp and woof of the souls we were weaving. 

@ And it is well for us to remember that a very small 
percentage of the human family has perished in the awful 
catastrophes of earth. 

Besides, it is not at all certain, since all must die sooner 
or later, that accidental death involves greater suffering 
than natural death. 

Over the entire earth, thousands die every day in the 
year without making much impression on our minds; but 
when the Titanic went down with several hundred aboard, 


EARTHQUAKES AND PESTILENCES 169 


we were dazed; we felt it almost as overpoweringly as 
if each died a thousand times, 

Yet each one died but once and, for many of them, 
their death was less prolonged misery than it would have 
been if they had died one now and anothér then on 
shore. 

The passengers on the Titanic were but a handful in 
comparison with all the other people who died on that 
day—yet who of us gave those others a thought? 

I should choose a world like ours in preference to a 
tame, dangerless world, even if I knew that sometime 
I should be struck down by lightning or swept away by 
a cyclone. 

A world like ours makes for life and love of higher 
quality far more than it would if it were as safe and 
stupid as an ox-cart. 

If all opportunity for the dramatic were taken from 
life, from whence would come our music, our art, our 
biography, our history? I prefer a world where— 


God moves in a mysterious way, 
His wonders to perform; 
He plants His footsteps in the sea 
And rides upon the storm. 


@ Those who reside about Vesuvius probably love their 
live mountain far more than our people love our quiet, 
harmless ones; and the number of them who have died 
from the eruptions of Vesuvius are as nothing compared 
with its admirers who have died a natural death. 


170 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


People who do so, live by their own choice within 
the danger zone of a volcano. 

The thoughts and imaginations of people all over the 
earth have been quickened by Vesuvius, our fascinating 
and awe-inspiring old friend. 

Every child has his attention riveted to his little 
geography as he looks at the pictures of volcanoes and 
the frightful sand storms of deserts. 

One of the deepest responses of the human heart is to 
the appeal of the dramatic and terrible; it takes us out 
of ourselves and touches us with the awe of the Infinite; 
of that which exceeds and lies beyond all human 
power. 

@ Moreover, if we use our intelligence, the world, which 
does not have our soul in its power at all, is far more 
safe than dangerous for our bodies. 

And one great good service rendered by all destructive 
forces is to make us use our intelligence. 

We could and should make the world a much safer 
place than it is in which to live, although we shall never 
be able to eliminate all danger. 

If I were asked to suggest a better world than the 
one about us for beginners and experimenters, I should 
not know what suggestions to make. 

It is not a nobler God and a better universe that we 
need, but a deeper knowledge of our own good and a 
finer fidelity to God and ourselves. 

In every way this side of downright coercion, God stim- 
ulates and encourages us to grow in wisdom and char- 


EARTHQUAKES AND PESTILENCES 171 


acter, by taking a larger share in turning the raw material 
supplied by this universe into a lovely dwelling. 

This constant extension of the scope of our participa- 
tion is only made possible by the invention of tools and 
of the harnessing of the forces able to supplement the 
work of arms and legs and backs. 


2. Wuy Doers Gop SEND PESTILENCES? 


@ There is no realm, however good, in which the risk of 
evil may not come. 

Jesus said that it is unwise to fear them that can kill 
the body only. 

To many people the word microbe has a frightful 
sound ; and yet bacteria are as necessary to man, to beast, 
to vegetation, and to the soil as are fire and water. 

But fire and water, indispensable blessings that they 
are, are most destructive elements when not under proper 
control. 

Water may either slake our thirst or drown us; gas 
may asphyxiate us or cook our food; bacteria may de- 
stroy us or help on the most useful chemical activities 
in our bodies. 

The greater part of the many species of bacteria are 
not only harmless but highly useful. 

The malignant germs, comparatively few, such as 
typhoid, may have offices in nature that we have not 
yet discovered, but we already know that the malignant 
germs have served at least two wonderfully important 
purposes: They have required us to keep clean, and have 


172 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


driven us like a whip to make the acquaintance of the 
whole microscopic world below our natural range of 
vision. 

@ It is impossible to estimate how much of our scientific 
advancement has been thus due to these enemies. 

Sickness, like fires, is for the most part incidental and 
preventable. 

Sickness usually is a good friend who tells us that we 
stand in need of repairs and insists upon our attending 
to them. 

After sin, ignorance is our greatest enemy. 

Forming the acquaintance of the two worlds bewilder- 
ing for their vastness, the one beneath our ordinary range 
of vision and the other above it, affords us something 
more than interesting intellectual exercise. 

Our physical and spiritual well-being forbids our re- 
maining ignorant of these worlds. 

Man was placed here not to mark time, but for a life 
of progress. 

God wishes to have us sweep His vast Heavens with 
the telescope and develop the sciences that will enable 
us to understand them. 

He bids us by a thousand and one appeals to our 
curiosity, to turn our microscope upon the worlds beneath 
us and become familiar in our ingenious laboratories with 
His worlds in miniature. 

He invites us to take an ever enlarging part in the 
bringing of all things into harmony with human need 
and divine wisdom. 


EARTHQUAKES AND PESTILENCES Vs 


God wishes us to know the house in which we live from 

attic to cellar, so that we may keep it in better order. 
@ The spiritual graces and virtues are supremely good, 
but how can we cultivate them while we willfully remain 
ignorant of our bodies or of the world in which we 
live? 

To remain ignorant of these things is to invite disaster 
and death. 

It would be a sorry day for man’s spiritual as well as 
his physiological health if scientific knowledge were not 
further sought after. 

Psychic energy has its laws which are as real and 
available as those of chemical or electric energy and they 
also stand in need of more ferreting out for us. 

God could do us no worse turn than to carry us as 
ignorant little lambs over all places of danger. 

We were not designed to remain such ignorant little 
things; we were ordained to become, by growth, intelli- 
gent sons of God; we were expected to learn the way 
we should take, and by our intelligence and character, 
walk in it with safety. 

If God met all our difficulties for us, we should live 
on forever in almost total ignorance. 

For ages, men did live here in well nigh complete 
ignorance of the laws of chemistry, nor did they know 
of the existence of the infinite worlds beneath us and 
above us. 

@ Apparently that would be our own condition, nor 
should we ever become acquainted with them if occa- 


174 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


sional disasters had not swept down from above or swept 
up from beneath to arouse men from their lethargy. 

For millenniums these disasters awakened only supersti- 
tious fear; for men did not dream that they were invi- 
tations to them to come out of their shell. 

It is but recently that we have learned that every 
catastrophe is a blow to our sluggish nature for the pur- 
pose of waking us to new effort in the direction of self- 
discovery and world conquest. 

If, semi-occasionally, we were not thus rudely awak- 
ened, more than likely we should become degraded 
parasites. 

As it is, some sluggards growl and curse when they 
are disturbed; but if the hand that arouses us were not 
a bit rough we would sleep on. 

Rough as the awakening is, multitudes still continue 
to slumber; but God will not permit us to oversleep, for 
lack of alarms, while the house burns down over our 
head or while we sink into stagnation. 


3. Wuy Dip Gop Make Nature “Rep IN TOOTH AND 
CLAW’? 


@ Some of the people who feel so distressed over the fact 
that animals prey upon one another have no compunc- 
tion of conscience over raising animals for their own 
food. 

Man himself is a carnivorous being and is not greatly 
disturbed by the fact. 


EARTHQUAKES AND PESTILENCES 175 


Most of our domesticated animals would never have 
been born at all if they did not serve a human need. 

Because they are valuable for food, they are bred in 
great numbers and well cared for. Intelligent and humane 
treatment is the only profitable treatment. 

Animals do not suffer from meditation of death and 
a judgment to come; they do not worry about their 
future nor the future of their posterity. 

If they are humanely slaughtered, which sad to say 
is not always true, unconsciousness comes before they are 
aware of being hurt. 

If existence is worth anything to them, it is well for 
them that they are bred in great numbers and, after being 
well cared for during life, are caused to pass away before 
old age and infirmities come upon them. 

Remember that they could not live here indefinitely and 
multiply; a single species alone, in that case, would soon 
crowd everything else off the earth. 

If animals are to be born at all, they must soon go 
the way of all flesh and die. 

I once met a person whose feelings were greatly out- 
raged because God permitted little lambs to be eaten by 
fierce lions. 

Evidently this man had never pictured to himself what 
a hell of suffering a world of old, decrepit animals would 
be like. 

I confess that I do not like to kill even a caterpillar 
because I will credit it at the moment of its doom with 
all the thoughts and feelings that would be mine. 


176 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


@ No one should wantonly take life; yet when the taking 
of life becomes necessary, the death stroke and uncon- 
sciousness usually take place almost simultaneously. 

The reflex action of muscles that immediately follows 
looks very distressing to us; but the animal 5 quite past 
feeling before that spasm of the muscles takes place. 

Although the very phrase, “red in tooth and claw” 
gives us a shiver because we naturally feel faint at the 
sight of blood, yet in “nature’s slaughterhouse’ when 
blood appears, the possibility of pain is usually past. 

q True, every living thing feeds on something else; even 
bacteria will feed upon bacteria as well as on higher 
animals and plants. 

It is interesting to observe under the glass one micro- 
scopic being wrap itself around and absorb another with 
good or bad effects upon the consumer. 

True, all animals are conscious, yet that is something 
very different from being self-conscious. 

By following their natural bent, they accomplish their 
work in the economy of nature and then becoming food 
for other workers are sent back to their primitive ele- 
ments. 

By far the greater part of this destruction of life, I 
am convinced, means little more, as far as pain is con- 
cerned, than the snuffing out of a candle. 

Just a touch, and the insect is gone; a snap of the 
steel jaws, and the victim is unconscious. 

@ For all animals, according to their upward place in the 
scale of life, increased and more acute pain and pleasure 


EARTHQUAKES AND PESTILENCES 177 


become necessary; pleasure to allure, and pain to safe- 
guard. 

Fear of the cause, is the response that naturally fol- 
lows pain and teaches the animal to avoid danger. Some- 
thing resembling fear begins with the lower forms of 
life and becomes more accented as life moves upward. 

Both the pleasure and the fear, accompaniments of life 
in the jungle, must be very great; but they are largely 
spontaneous. 

It is not very likely that animals brood over the one 
or the other but pursue or escape, as the case may be, 
under the urge of the moment. 

Fear puts verve into the animal and accelerates its 
efforts to fight or to flee. 

This not only develops these capacities, but such record- 
breaking performances greatly add to its pleasure; even 
nice little boys like to fight. 

Our police dog is affectionate but whenever an oppor- 

tunity offers to fight another dog, his very hair gets 
electrified. 
@ The cat’s disposition to toy with a mouse has every 
appearance of wanton cruelty, but it is a pretty well 
established fact that the mouse is half hypnotized all the 
time by some beneficent provision in nature. 

Livingstone tells us that when he was knocked down 
by a lion in the jungles of Africa, the deep peace that 
immediately followed was like an opiate. 

Nature seems to set certain automatic limits to the 
anguish producible by pain. 


178 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


@ Nothing that has here been said is intended to deny 
the fact that animals suffer, or to smooth over the cruel 
treatment of animals by human beings which is beyond 
belief. 

The humane societies have a noble work to perform 
in protecting animals from human beasts. 

Men have much to answer for in their cruel treatment, 
and in their toleration of the cruel treatment, of animals. 
q As for people who brood over what they call “nature’s 
slaughterhouse”’ they go too far when they endow insects 
and worms with the equivalent of human capacity for 
pain and anxiety; with such pain and anxiety as they 
themselves would feel if they and their families were 
being slaughtered by a band of Indians. 

Ninety-nine per cent of the total life on this earth is 
snuffed out with no more consciousness of death than 
there was consciousness of birth. 


4. Wuy Dots Gop PERMIT THE INNOCENT AND 
HELPLESS TO SUFFER? 


@ Partly—indeed, to no small degree—because many of 
us men and women can not be prevailed upon to stop 
doing the things that cause the innocent and helpless to 
suffer. 

The first step necessary to eliminate such suffering 
would be to exterminate many of us. 

God may do everything possible to persuade, but He 
is self-debarred from crossing the line and doing anything 
to coerce. 


EARTHQUAKES AND PESTILENCES 179 


Human beings, for good or ill, are necessarily members 
one of another. 

God seems to be saying to us, in permitting it, that 
the suffering of the innocent and the helpless is not too 
high a price to pay for the avoidance of permanent divi- 
sions and splits in His human family. 

If some do wrong, in the nature of things all must 
suffer together; and, naturally, the weak suffer most. 

Except through the instrumentality of the strong, what 
means has God left of protecting the weak? 

If, as so often happens, the only living instruments 

through whom He can work fail Him, what can God do 
but ply the slow pupils with new persuasion to a change 
of heart? 
@ Our unnecessary ignorance, indifference, bad govern- 
ment, crooked business, and moral laxness are the most 
prolific causes of human suffering; and these are to be 
charged against us and not against God. 

If people in general were as anxious to stop the pain 
and sorrow of the innocent and helpless by stopping its 
wicked sources as God is, the major part of human suf- 
fering would cease at once. 

Jesus said, “Let him that is greatest among you be 
the servant of all.” 

But we too frequently say, “Let him that is greatest 
among you prove it by showing how many of his fellows 
he can grind under his heel.” 

@ The famine-smitten districts, the plague-cursed re- 
gions, the odoriferous dens, the haunts of criminals, all 


180 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


these could rather soon be wiped out, to a very large 
extent, if society only cared enough about its weaker 
members to set up and operate the social machinery re- 
quired. 

Strange to say, many members of God’s human family 
deliberately and maliciously cause others to suffer; this 
is true of thieves, murderers, and crooks of every descrip- 
tion. 

And besides, many who are not intentionally vicious 
do careless and selfish things that in the long run weaken 
society and cause universal suffering. 

We may pray to God forever on behalf of the innocent, 
and much of their suffering would t.ot be diminished if 
men kept on doing those things that cause the suffering. 

Our heart-aches over innocent sufferers amount to 

nothing unless they arouse us to Herculean self-sacrificing 
efforts to insure every human being as far as possible, 
his right to be well, prosperous, and happy. 
@ If the cruel burden of human suffering is ever to be 
reduced and finally eliminated, we must codperate with 
God in putting down the vices; both the ignorant and the 
intentional vices, that eat like a cancer at the heart of 
society. 

Heartless men must not be permitted to enrich them- 
selves through child labor; property owners must not be 
allowed to fatten themselves by renting run-down prop- 
erty that breeds disease; nations must rise above the 
crime of war that kills off the best men and starves 
the women and the children; greed, domestic and inter- 


—_———— a 


EARTHQUAKES AND PESTILENCES 181 


national, must be greatly reduced before we can hope 
to curtail the suffering of the helpless and innocent. 

As society grows more complex, suffering will greatly 
increase unless we grow much better, because both the 
individual man’s power to augment and to assuage it 
will be multiplied manyfold. 

An inordinate desire for pleasure will incapacitate us 
for taking any serious interest in the well-being of God’s 
human family and make real happiness impossible. 

@ If the unnecessary suffering in the world does not 
soon sit heavier than it does at present on the hearts of 
people, civilization will again fall into moral decay. 

Too many folks think that common decency is enough; 
and then complacently do things that they could not do 
at all, let alone with impunity, if they were more en- 
lightened in regard to their human family duties. 

If any one is greatly distressed (as he should be) over 
the suffering of the innocent and helpless, then let him 
join the great army of men and women who are deter- 
mined to turn the searchlight of truth upon everything 
that is related to human weal and woe. 

We are beginning to learn many things of which our 
ancestors were ignorant, that lie at the foundation of all 
social well-being and we are capable of learning much 
more, 

The suffering of the world 7s pitiful; not pitiful enough 
it seems, however, to stir us as a people to make its 
prevention our chief business. 

Ninety per cent of human suffering could and should 


182 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


be made to cease; but it could not be done by changing 
God’s beneficent law of cause and effect. 

If God were to save the innocent from suffering while 
we were sinning against them, He would need to remove 
them completely from us, and we would degenerate with 
all the ease that an unsupported object falls to the ground. 

Even the bitter consequences of our wrong social do- 

ing have not, so far, deterred us from violating the laws 
of God and humanity, and if all evil consequences of 
our wrongdoing were removed, the last hope for the race 
would be gone. 
@ We need to be impressed more than ever with the sin- 
fulness of all curable ignorance; ignorance of any and 
all particulars that pertain to the happiness and well- 
being of the race. 

Every useful bit of knowledge has a moral and also 
a religious significance. 

No matter how much we pray to God and ask Him to 
forgive all our sins, we are sinful if we carelessly refuse 
to learn from new facts of life other sins of ignorance 
that we are committing without even a thought that they 
should be disowned. 

It is no pleasure to God to be told how much we adore 
and love Him if we care nothing for studying out what 
He is doing or how He is trying to do it; if we care 
nothing for the permanent relief of our unfortunate and 
weaker brothers. 

The study of the sciences, and the conscientious appli- 


KARTHOQUAKES AND PESTILENCES 183 


cation of their laws to the needs of humanity, has become 
our bounden Christian duty. 

To leave it to God to look after human suffering, so 
that we shall need to know and do nothing with reference 
to it, would make us over into a despicable race, worse 
than useless to ourselves, to the innocent, and to God. 

With sorrow and shame we must admit that as a rule, 
we have not done the part that might reasonably have 
been expected of us in helping to remove the sorrows 
of the world. 

Of course, a few people have, but a few good people 
can not do everything; society as a whole must be aroused 
to better understanding of its social duties; to a diviner 
way of living. 

And that would be a genuine revival of religion that is 
much needed. 

@ The suffering of the race is not confined to the mis- 
fortunes of children, the sick, and the poor, although that 
suffering is widespread and appalling. 

When the mental suffering of the world is added to 
the physical suffering, the aggregate beggars description. 

Some people little realize the ocean of anguish in the 
world on account of moral failure, family troubles, and 
all sorts of mishaps among people who seem favorably 
situated. 

The world’s burden is heavy, and must remain heavy, 
until the mind of the world is lifted to the mind of 
Christ and it learns to look at it through His eyes. 


184 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


If the world is wise, it will heed these gracious words, 
“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest.” 

@ Not for a moment do I claim that there would be no 
suffering left if all people were good. 

However, if we all came to the Master and, like Him, 
“grew in wisdom, in stature, and in favor with God and 
man,” the reduction of suffering that would follow would 
be astounding in its proportions. 

And yet, some suffering would remain; there would 
still be some accidents, some sickness, some failures, 
some weariness, and the separation from loved ones by 
death. 

Room must be found in the making of a life for a 
reasonable measure of hardship; up to the extent that 
hardship is a blessing. 

Since Jesus was “made perfect through suffering,” it 
is useless for us to hope that we can be made perfect 
without our allotment of suffering. 

The degree in which suffering has been one of the 
factors in the making of all great souls, is but common 
knowledge. 

Therefore, we should bear up without loss of courage 
under all burdens that are unavoidable or self-sacrificingly 
necessary. 

Sorrow has done too much for us, for many of us 
to feel that all suffering should be eliminated. 

For the seasoning of our souls, we must endure hard- 
ships as good soldiers; and when we do so faithfully 


EARTHQUAKES AND PESTILENCES 185 


and bravely, strength comes and it is not so hard any 
longer. 

For God shares our sorrows, and in doing so fills us 
with His life, His love, and His vision. 

All who suffer for the love of God and men, live in 
a fellowship divine. 

The unnecessary trouble that we make ourselves and 
others, is hideous; otherwise, the necessary hardships of 
life would be more easily seen to be a wholesome tonic. 
@ The path of life that we are to travel is not completely 
charted and marked with guide-posts before we travel it; 
if it were, the never-dying interest that we take in life 
would be gone. | 

Fortunately, room is left for the exercise of judgment 
and for a measure of what we call the incalculable. 

The best plans in the world sometimes fail; wind and 
tide are not always favorable. 

The element of incalculableness is too universal for 
anyone to escape it altogether—even Jesus did not. 

There is room for disappointment and failure in the 
best of lives; a good man has no guarantee that all his 
experiments will prove successful or that he will live to 
be three-score and ten. 

The best family in the world can not take it for 
granted that death and other misfortunes will not come 
to them. 

There is no Providence, however much implored, that 
ever has or ever will completely eliminate unexpected set- 
backs for any of us. 


186 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


In the face of all the claims of deliverance that have 
been made for faith and prayer, some of the greatest 
saints have been the greatest sufferers. 

The great afflictions that fall to the lot of some who 
excel in purity, faith, and prayer do not in the least 
discredit either these virtues or their possession of 
them. 

Saints are known to be saints because they perform 
hard duties and bear severe trials with cheerful patience 
and love. 

Through twenty years of distressing affliction, the one 
to whom this book is dedicated became day by day more 
loving and more lovely. She is canonized in the hearts 
of all who knew her. 


5. ls Ir Right THAT CHILDREN SHOULD SUFFER FOR 
THE SINS OF THEIR PARENTS? 


@ It is not right; it is the greatest injustice. 

Nothing is more cruelly wrong than for parents to 
injure their children through sin; to doom them, for 
instance, to blindness and other misfortunes before they 
are born. 

Thousands make themselves through their sins, unfit 
for parenthood; and they are under moral obligation to 
deny themselves the great blessing of a family. 

They should willingly accept this deprivation as a part 
of their own just punishment and as a proof of their 
unwillingness to lay heavy burdens upon the children that 
might be born to them. 


EARTHQUAKES AND PESTILENCES 187 


That the results of parents’ sins are visited upon their 
children to the third and fourth generation is a correct 
observation, and the fact should deter men from doing 
those things that will be certain to bring suffering upon 
their offspring. 

The laws of heredity and environment are the founda- 
tion of all human advancement, and they bind parents 
and children who conform to them together in the most 
endearing relations. 

Men who curse their offspring by giving them a bad 
inheritance and a pernicious environment, strike at two 
of God’s most beneficent laws. The germs of life from 
which our children grow are, it is plain, put in our keep- 
ing. And as to environment, God has no hands with 
which to take care of children, except the hands of their 
parents and neighbors; He has no lips with which to 
teach them, except the lips of their parents, their teachers, 
and their friends. 

While God carries the greater share of the load in 
the making and preserving of every life, yet if parent 
hands and parent brains will not cooperate with him in 
the share left to them, what can he do but ply them with 
new persuasions to a change of heart? 

If parents do not know enough and care enough to 
do their part, since God is self-debarred from crossing 
the line and doing anything to coerce them, their children 
must suffer. 

Can any one imagine, in the common nature of things, 
how God is able to care for babies, or look after the 


188 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


poor little waifs in the slums, if parents and older people 
in general are utterly indifferent to them? 

q All rational beings get their worth from belonging to 
one another and from being a part of one another; even 
if they could exist in isolation, they would be of no 
value to themselves or any one else. 

Here then is the bed-rock reason why children suffer 
for the sins of their parents and neighbors; they are a 
part of their parents and a part of society; and even this 
frightful bill of anguish is not too high a price to pay 
to avoid a split in God’s human family beyond all healing. 

The injustice done them is often terrible and the guilt 
should be felt by all those who directly or indirectly 
cause their injury, or stand by consenting to it. 

God is filled with compassion for these helpless suf- 

ferers and through his suffering presence in Jesus, He is 
trying to get us to open wider channels for this same 
compassion in our hearts. 
@ When parents and society get weighted down by the 
burdensomeness of these awful and sobering facts, there 
will be less of “Rachael weeping for her children and 
refusing to be comforted because they are not.” 

Because the tie that binds us to one another from 
conception to birth, and from birth to death, is of the 
nature of an umbilical cord, we all suffer more or less 
because of the sins of our parents and neighbors. 

But the reverse is likewise true; we all have a cumula- 
tive share in the blessings of the good. 

It can be made a beautiful thing to live; and those of 


EARTHQUAKES AND PESTILENCES 189 


us who enjoy a good inheritance, and good environment, 
should show our gratitude by doing our part to lift the 
curse that falls like a blight upon so many innocent suf- 
ferers. 

In this noble work, we shall find God our greatest 
friend and hardest co-worker. 

God calls us, above the ribald shouts of revelry and 
the wailings of the innocent, to join with Him in a 
mighty crusade against ignorance and vice. 

Therefore, curse not God because the innocent suffer, 
but turn to and help Him with thy might, O man, Son 
of the Highest! 


6. Ir Gop SEEs ALL HUMAN SUFFERING, How CAn 
He Be Happy? 


@ God is not as happy as he might be; He takes no 
pleasure in suffering. He who marks the sparrow’s fall 
and hears the raven’s cry has no cruelty in His nature. 

Doubtless God is happy, but we malign Him by think- 
ing Him capable of nothing but unruffled bliss. 

He does not enjoy hearing little children cry for bread; 
nor is He pleased with those who stole the bread from 
those starving mouths. 

His knowledge that the afflictions of His children are 
largely caused by willful ignorance and crime does not 
dissipate his grief. 

God is not so happy but that He would be much 
happier if we all obeyed Him perfectly and were more 
kind and helpful to one another. 


190 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


The Great Father did not enjoy the late war; His 
grief was deep and genuine when He saw His children 
take the instruments of life and turn them into the 
instruments of death. 

@ To try to picture the suffering that God sees and 
feels is a futile task; no one knows the billionth part of 
all that gives Him sorrow. 

Little as we know in the aggregate of this suffering, 
yet, after thinking long about it, it grows so vast and 
appalling that we almost forget there is anything left 
to think about but suffering. 

Whether we consider the world’s happiness or its mis- 
ery, we are filled with wonder; there is so much of both. 

Jesus, the one most like God, was sorrowful in the 
Garden even unto death; but for the joy that was set 
before Him endured the cross and despised the shame. 
Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth. 
@ The point to be emphasized is that our Father knows 
a far deeper satisfaction than would be possible if He 
did not care. His tender compassion for the sorrowful 
is one of His deepest joys. 

In suffering with those we love, there is a happiness 
such as selfish hearts can never know. 

This is not foolish vaporing about something we do 
not understand, for we too have tasted something of its 
joy. 

It is a satisfaction deeper than mere light-hearted hap- 
piness. 

Who are the most contented, courageous, and sweet- 


EARTHQUAKES AND PESTILENCES IQI 


spirited people in the world? Those who are selfish and 
indifferent to the world’s woe? Or those who identify 
themselves compassionately and helpfully with the needy 
and afflicted? 

For an answer, consult the rescue workers, the mis- 
sionaries, and all self-sacrificing people. 

Which had the deeper joy, the Pharisee and Levite 
who passed the man who fell among thieves without pity 
and help, or the good Samaritan? 

When I hear those who count not their own lives 
dearer unto them, speak of their joy in ministering to a 
needy world, I try to imagine the exultation of God; 
the living, dying, joyous, sorrowful God; the God whose 
sympathies are as high as heaven and as deep as hell. 

What must be the richness of His life who knows all 
goodness, all sin, all happiness, and all sorrow; who never 
stands idly by but brings to the world’s highest aspirations 
and deepest despair a wisdom, a love, and a compassion 
that will ultimately burn away all barriers, destroy all 
opposition, win all hearts, and fulfill His own highest 
hope in the fulfilled hopes of every heart! 

@ God is not exactly what we ordinarily mean by happy; 
He knows something so much deeper, richer, and more 
worth while. 

Simple happiness will not express it; before such joy 
as His, simple happiness pales into something vapid. 

Not until we have lived more deeply, and entered more 
fully into the suffering and joy of our Lord can or shall 
we understand. 


192 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


There are no symbols that will exactly convey to us 
now just what it is that God feels. We shall never know 
except as we become like Him. 

Dying will not teach us, going to a crystal heaven 
will not inform us; the hallelujah choruses of the re- 
deemed will not convey to us its meaning; its truth will 
first dawn upon us when we have filled up the measure 
of Christ’s suffering, and come bringing white-robed 
souls with us out of the wreck and grime of a cruel 
world. 

Then we shall understand how God managed to endure 
the suffering of a world like ours. 


7. Wuy Does Gop PERMIT THE BAD TO PROSPER AND 
THE Goop To FaIL? 


@ While there are bad rich men and good poor men, 
yet as a rule good people succeed much better than those 
who are lazy, dishonest and wicked. 

But what kind of a world would this be if the wicked 
could never succeed in accomplishing their purposes? 

If only the good could keep well, avoid accidents, and 
make money, life would lose about all its meaning. Every 
one would be forced to be good or perish. 

If God discriminated between the good and the bad to 
that extent, then in every railroad wreck, in every disas- 
ter, in every epidemic, the good would be spared and 
the bad taken. 

Perpetual miracles would have to be wrought to keep 
fire from burning the property of good men, to turn the 


EARTHQUAKES AND PESTILENCES 193 


lightning out of its common course, and to cause cyclones 
to skip all good people and their property. 

Of a more irrational world than that, it would be diff- 
cult to conceive. 

In such a world, it would be impossible to make char- 
acter or to do business. 

No thoughtful person could wish God to upset the 
whole economy of His wise and beneficent laws daily 
and hourly for the sake of making a good man prosper 
or a bad man fail. 

The more one thinks on the question, Why does God 
permit the bad to prosper and the good to fail, the more 
irrational does a proposal for its reversal appear. 

He would have to checkmate his laws so frequently 
that it would turn the universe into bedlam. 

@ lf a bad man shoots straight he is a law keeper in that 
respect and he will hit the mark; if he plows well, he 
will raise corn. 

The one who best fulfills the laws of success in a par- 
ticular line will, as a rule, best succeed. 

Some very profane men are honest, skillful, and gen- 
erous; life presents many curious combinations of good- 
ness and badness, of skill and inefficiency. 

Some good people are very indifferent at many other 
things and will never succeed at them because they lack 
the required elements of success. 

Saving money is an art which some people can never 
learn; and judicious spending is a problem which some 
can never solve. 


194 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Many people, scattered through all classes, have more 
or less “bad luck’’; they get sick, their gilt-edged securi- 
ties become worthless, their properties lose their value 
because of forced liquidation by some sudden turn for 
the bad in business affairs—a whole string of such set- 
backs may keep them poor through no fault of their 
own. 

Others may have an almost unbroken chain of good 
luck. Some Indians have lately become millionaires, 
without turning a hand over, because oil was discovered 
on their land. 

Sometimes a business turns out much better than the 
owner ever planned or dreamed; sometimes just the re- 
verse. 

After a man has embarked in a certain line of business 
that promised well, it is not always easy to drop it if his 
hopes are not realized; and he may have to show the 
most consummate skill and industry in order to keep 
it a moderate success or to keep it from failing altogether. 
@ To make success in business absolutely certain, an en- 
tirely different world would be required, a world that 
would be nothing like as good as the present one. 

Taking all things as they are, those who are honest 
and willing can usually earn a living; many can save 
something, and a few can get rich. 

Policy may or may not be the best honesty, but all 
things considered, honesty is the best policy. 

A man is not to be judged by the amount of money 
he has, and no sane person so judges him. 


EARTHQUAKES AND PESTILENCES 195 


I know many poor men whom I should rather be like 
with their poverty than to be like many rich men whom 
I know with their wealth. 

Yet there are rich men who are a great honor and 
blessing to the race. | 

Some believe that the wealth of the world should be 
pretty evenly distributed among us all; that private owner- 
ship is wrong. | 

While it is true that some men have great wealth 
which has been gained by dishonest methods and that 
they should be brought to a rigorous accounting, yet I 
am convinced that the wealth of the world would be 
squandered in a thousand foolish and harmful ways if 
it were placed in the hands of all the people regardless 
of their intelligence and character. 

Great accumulations of wealth can be used to pro- 
vide business with adequate capital and for the advance- 
ment of science. 

At the present stage of civilization, perhaps the best 
thing we can do is to guarantee the rights of private 
ownership while we place added restrictions upon those 
who are inclined to gain wealth by unfair means. 

No matter what system of economics we may adopt, 
much crookedness will go on unless we pay more atten- 
tion to our duties as Christian citizens. 

@ The duties of citizenship are probably more systemati- 
cally neglected by good people than any other set of their 
duties. 

Here again men have to be driven to their duty through 


196 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


civic, social, and industrial suffering before they will 
perform it; and yet there is nothing that develops and 
improves social consciousness and good-will like an in- 
telligent interest in the common political, economic, and 
social good. 

@ Some people make money because they give themselves 
completely, soul and body, to the making of it; ignorant 
they are and they are willing to remain ignorant of 
pretty much everything else but money-making; they 
deny themselves all pleasure except that which they find in 
the accumulation of wealth; they turn a deaf ear to all 
forms of charity; they withhold many things from them 
that would be beneficial to their families. 

The number of people who get rich in this way is prob- 
ably far greater than many of us realize. 

And it can be done, as it often is, without being crooked 
in business; but it is too big a price for a sensible man 
to pay. 

Many of our best people deliberately choose not to 
enter the race for great riches because their fine sense 
of values makes them feel that they can not afford to 
do so. 

If to get rich they must be virtually dishonest like 
some, or become a high tension business machine like 
others, they quite prefer to remain poor. 

But where a person can gain wealth without being 
dishonest or without sacrificing all his other interests in 
life, as sometimes he may, then it becomes a Christian 
duty; for if he did not accept this greater opportunity to 


EARTHQUAKES AND PESTILENCES _ 107 


serve, he would make himself unworthy in the sight of 
God and man. 

Where one can reasonably and honestly render this 
larger service, let him rejoice in it; but if he cannot gain 
riches without sidetracking his other obligations to God 
and man, let him remain poor without feeling ashamed 
of his poverty. 

Every man has his reward: A worthy poor man gains 
from his life investment a competency, a soul, Divine 
approval, and the love of many; an unworthy rich man 
wins from his life investment the envy and hatred of 
many and the loss of his soul. 

I have known men who nobly and conscientiously 

made their personal sacrifice by giving up many things 
for the greater service they could render to society by 
managing “big’’ business. 
@ There is nothing mysterious about why some succeed 
and some fail when we consider the uncertainty of riches, 
differences in ability, and in opportunities that inevitably 
come in the nature of things. 

A world with no business risk in it would not be a 
good world in which to train us for a better one. 

A man should not have his property taken from him, 
as long as he does business honestly, because he does not 
believe in my religion, nor because of some moral imper- 
fection that he may have. 

And when a man is not honest in business, God is sim- 
ply waiting for us to help Him to bring that man to 
judgment. 


198 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


However, if all men were honest, business would still 
be something like the weather; wet seasons and dry; sea- 
sons cold and seasons scorching hot. 

It requires great foresight and many readjustments 
to keep business up with the times; a railroad misses a 
town, a new substitute is found for some old commodity, 
a new invention junks a whole mill-full of costly ma- 
chinery, a whole industry shifts from one section to an- 
other—a thousand natural things may happen to make 
business prosper in one section and deteriorate or fail in 
another. 

The readjustments necessitated by these changes, in 
the long run, are great factors in the advancement of the 
race; they prevent stagnation and dry rot; they keep 
men alert and progressive. 

No one need ever expect or hope for a time when pros- 
perity shall be made too easy or too safe; God thinks 
too much of us to permit such a thing. 


CHAPTER VIII 
WHERE DID SIN COME FROM? 


Could sin have entered God’s good world 
without the seductive influence of a devil? 


Is there a personal devil? 
What is sin? 

Who is to blame for sin? 
Why do we sin? 

Will God damn a sinner? 


Is there any value in sin? 


@ Many people regard sin as the most perpiexing mys- 
tery in the world. 

Where did sin come from? Why does God permit it? 
Why did He make us with sinful natures? Why does He 
allow the devil to tempt us? 

Something of an injured feeling in these questions 
seems to imply that God has not been quite fair with His 
children, 

@ False teaching is much to blame for the mist that has 
gathered about this subject. 

It has made the nature and origin of sin appear much 
more mysterious than was necessary. 

Though the nature and cause of sin were ever so sim- 

199 


200 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


ple, yet the ravages of sin would be enough to daze any- 
one familiar with them. 

The best and most sheltered people sometimes tremble 
before the waves of vice that sweep over the country; 
and those who are not protected stagger under the burden 
of sin. . 

Homes, schools, business institutions, and governments 
have all felt its withering touch. 

Whoever regards sin lightly is either a knave or a 

fool. 
@ A few years ago some psychologists began teaching 
that it was natural to do right and unnatural to do wrong ; 
that sin was rather incidental and might be avoided by 
the application of a few simple rules of psychology. 

To weary teachers, to perplexed parents, and to some 
who were even more weary and perplexed by their own 
sins, this sounded like good news. 

However, in spite of all our psychology sin has kept 
right on at about the same old pace. 

School children are not yet saints, business is not 
morally perfect, politics is not “chemically pure’ and 
when the world war broke out many were inclined to 
believe it showed that the world was more wicked than 
it had been for a century. 

Psychology is very good in its place, but it is not a 
panacea, it does not know everything, nor can it supply 
the motive power necessary to transform the race. 

Human nature is strongly inclined to be good and it is 
greatly tempted to be bad. 


WHERE DID SIN COME FROM? 201 


Even the teachers of the most hopeful, promising forms 
of applied psychology are not entirely free from sin 
themselves, nor are they altogether unfamiliar with the 
stress and strain of life. 

Every one of them has at times a little more than he 
can do to keep in the straight and narrow path and if 
he were differently employed he might encounter worse 
temptations than any he has yet known. 

Right knowledge is a great help, but character in the 
long run depends upon a choice, an alliance, and a fight. 

Others may greatly aid us, but we ourselves must sup- 

ply the real thing that brings the moral victory. 
@ After one has deliberately chosen his ideal goal, after 
he has carefully formed his holy alliances, especially with 
God, and after he has begun to fight the good fight, he 
will still experience some painful lapses. 

He will need, from time to time, to repent and try again 
with renewed determination or he will fail. 

To teach that we can be good without sometimes having 
to strive to our utmost, is both untruthful and dangerous. 
@ So it is that while some make goodness altogether 
harder than is necessary, others minimize the struggle 
which every good person knows is involved in the win- 
ning of a character. 

Even so pure and loving a person as Jesus, with all the 
helps at His command, sometimes groaned under the 
strain of temptation. 

No one ever knew better than He how to make good- 
ness easy and unirksome and delightful; yet He knew 


202 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


its hard side as well, and gave His disciples fair warning 
to beware of temptations from without and from within. 

In the face of all our patent methods for eliminating 
sin, this generation has inherited the race-long conflict 
with evil. 

Advanced civilization brings to the young and undis- 
ciplined rare opportunities to be good, and subtle tempta- 
tions to be bad. 

Even if our earth were as civilized as heaven, youth 
would still need to learn how to live through trials and 
temptations. 

@ If we are to get anywhere with the subject of sin and 
temptation, we must lift it entirely out of its old setting. 

A better understanding of sin and a finer determination 
to grapple with it, are matters of primary importance 
to every human being. 

No one can honestly stand apart and say with indiffer- 
ence, “Sin has touched neither me nor any of my loved 
ones; why should I be anxious?” 


1. Coutp Stn Have ENTERED Gop’s Goop WortLp 

WITHOUT THE SEDUCTIVE INFLUENCE OF A DEVIL? . 
@ Yes, because some innocent child of God had to sin 
before there was a devil. 

The first satan in this universe came to be because of 
sin, and not the first sin because of satan. 

God never made a sinner; all sinners when they began 
life were innocent. 


WHERE DID SIN COME FROM? 203 


As soon, however, as a person becomes wicked he helps 
to lead his associates into sin. 

As we have said, some one had to sin before there was 
a devil; and if one did, all may. 
@ Many people believe in two Gods; a good God, and a 
devil-god, who is just a little less powerful, but not less 
omnipresent. 

We have usually supposed that the satan so much 
feared and preached about, sinned while living in heaven. 

If that were true and sin could be committed in 
heaven, then surely man, without any outside satanic 
power to influence him, might sin on earth. 

Belief in a devil explains nothing with regard to the 
origin of sin in the universe. 

Even if it were admitted that sin was brought to the 
earth by an Evil Spirit, the origin of the evil in the 
Evil Spirit would not be explained. 


2. Is THERE A PERSONAL DEVIL? 


@j There is not simply one, there are many; and all of 
us have seen some of them and felt their seductive in- 
fluence. 

The devils we know, however, were all born on earth. 

There are many kinds of devils: little devils and big 
devils, cunning devils and fool devils; there are devils 
aplenty. 

In just so far as he turns away from his Father, every 
child of God becomes a devil; he becomes a personal 


204 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


center of evil; he becomes a tempter of others; and he 
may grow, as many have, to be mighty in evil. 

It would be difficult to exaggerate the seductive influ- 
ence of sinful men and women; the evil influence which 
they personally exert and the greater influence for evil 
of the tempting situations which they create. 

No being lower than a child of God is capable of be- 
coming a devil; animals may be fierce, but they can not 
become evil spirits. 

They are just clean wild animals until they are domes- 

ticated; and then they may be made filthy, but never 
devils. 
@ If God has children elsewhere than on this earth, they 
too have likely sinned; by this time some of them perhaps 
have become greater sinners than any we have ever known 
on earth. 

The most wicked person in the universe, if there is 
such, is the biggest devil; and all other sinners, regardless 
of where they live, are evil spirits in exact proportion 
to their wickedness. 

@ Is it probable that wicked spirits from other worlds 
ever came to tempt people on earth? It is not at all likely. 

This much I can say, I have never blamed the theologi- 
cal Satan for any wrong thing that ever I did; there 
were always plenty of reasons well known to me for doing 
wrong without blaming him. 

An Irishman once told the sheriff that he had twenty- 
one reasons for knowing that a certain crime was not 
committed by the man whom he was seeking. The first 


WHERE DID SIN COME FROM? 205 


reason was that the man had died before the crime was 
committed. 

“Hold on,” said the sheriff, “If that is true you need 
not give me your other twenty reasons.” 

So why should we hunt up other causes that are more 
than doubtful when we know well enough why we sin? 
@ An old man once testified in prayer meeting that he 
had had an unusually hard fight that night with the 
devil who tried to keep him from the service. 

He thanked God, however, that he had been able to win 
the victory over Satan and come to the service where he 
had experienced an unusual blessing. 

The facts were these: having done a hard day’s work 
in the cold he was tired and hungry—both of which 
were good. His excellent wife had provided a good 
supper, of which he partook gratefully and heartily. 
Filled and satisfied, he sat down by the warm fire and 
soon became delightfully drowsy. 

Everything so far was a reason for gratitude to God. 
Many a man whose nerves stick through the skin wishes 
that he could enjoy the blessings of such restful, con- 
tented drowsiness as this old man felt. 

When the hour for prayer meeting came, there was 
naturally a conflict between his sense of duty and his bliss- 
ful enjoyment of ease. 

If he had decided to do his duty promptly, the struggle 
would have been over in a moment; but stopping to 
weigh his duty against his immediate comfort the battle 
soon became fierce. 


206 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Having at last made the better choice he was now 
reaping his reward. The good demon of drowsiness was 
gone and his soul was filled with spiritual delights. 

On returning home, the good demon of drowsiness 
would again take possession of him and cause him to 
sink to rest with a soul cleansed and refreshed. 

Now it is better to know a little psychology in a case 

like that, than to be tormented by the thought of devils; 
unless one should foolishly conclude that temporizings 
and parleys with his natural temptations are less dan- 
gerous. 
@ Of one thing I am very certain; there is no wicked 
spirit who is as much everywhere present as God; there 
is no wicked spirit who can be with all the people all the 
time in all places watching his chance to lead them into 
sin. 

Any idea of Satan that makes him practically a bad 
God, is a fiction of the imagination. 

We need not fear a God-Devil, but we do well to be 
afraid of the little devils; of the evil-minded persons all 
about us, who can build “principalities and powers” and 
poison business, politics, and social relations until it is 
almost dangerous to live, and increasingly difficult to 
bring up children in the fetid atmosphere in some com- 
munities which these evil persons create. 

Regardless of how our first parents were tempted, the 
rest of us have many times been sorely tempted of devils; 
and judging from court records, it seems as if many men 
and women have been married to devils. 


WHERE DID SIN COME FROM? 207 


@ But the idea that people can be and are bewitched by 
evil spirits from realms beyond, so fully credited in the 
past, was probably a superstition handed down from 
times when people believed in good and bad gods. 

In Scriptural times all forms of sickness, all kinds of 
sin, and all temptations were attributed to the presence 
and influence of evil spirits. 

The epileptic boy was thought to have a very fierce 
devil, and the badly insane were supposed to be possessed 
by a legion of them. 

That human beings would have sinned without the 
seductive influence of an evil spirit is morally certain. 

To fight a winning battle against temptation and sin, 
we must dismiss the old dragon who was cast down from 
Heaven from our thoughts and direct our attention to 
something that is nearer and more dangerous—and, for- 
tunately, more comprehensible. 


3. Wuart Is Sin? 


@ Sin begins when we entertain a harmful thought and 
completes itself by doing a harmful deed. 

There is no sin in thinking an injurious thought if we 
condemn it and dismiss it from our minds when we 
recognize its evil character. 

Whoever harms himself, his neighbor, or his God by 
harboring injurious thoughts of any kind, or by perform- 
ing overt acts in their fulfillment, has sinned. 

Whoever does an injury without knowing it, has sim- 
ply made a mistake. 


208 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


If, however, his ignorance was due to carelessness, past 
or present, then his carelessness was a sin. 

All perverse ignorance is a crime. 

Life, however, is not simple, for sometimes we can 
not avoid inflicting one of two injuries; then to inflict the 
greater injury is sin. 

For example, to send a young man to war is to do 
him immediate harm, but if not to send him to war will 
in the long run do him and others more harm, then it 
becomes the country’s duty to send him at the risk of his 
losing his life. 

Often, also, a choice must be made between two good 

courses of action, and not to choose the better course is 
to sin. 
@ When it comes to specifying, we may modify our 
opinions as to which specific things are harmful, but if 
we are normal men and women we never lose the con- 
viction that it is right to benefit and wrong to harm. 

Exactly what things we ought to do and which things 
we should not do, is largely a matter of individual en- 
lightened judgment. 

Some think it a dreadful thing to play cards; others 
honestly regard card playing as an innocent, restful 
amusement. 

Intelligence must first determine whether card playing 
is beneficial or injurious before the conscience has any- 
thing to work upon. 

The same rule applies to conduct everywhere. 

We all agree that some things are harmful while we 


WHERE DID SIN COME FROM? 209 


honestly disagree regarding the injurious effects of 
others. 

The doubtful things must remain doubtful until we get 
more light; therefore, we do not dwell upon the question 
which specific deeds are wrong, but upon the nature of a 
sinful thought or act. 

To do what one thinks is harmful, whether it is or not, 
is to sin. Or if one has had the mind but has not done 
wrong simply because he did not have the opportunity, 
nevertheless, he is guilty; or if he is not sorry for past 
sins, it is proof that he still has the sinful mind. 


4. Wuy Do WE SIN? 


@ Why do we think and do things which we know to 
be harmful to ourselves and others? 

Not necessarily because we consciously desire to be 
wicked, but because we have a compelling desire for the 
immediate pleasure that a passing circumstance affords, 
and for that reason try to persuade ourselves that it will 
not be very injurious after all. 

We begin life by grasping every desirable thing that 
is not taken from us by our wiser seniors; and this we 
do quite innocently and without sin. 

As a little child, we do not know what a desire is for 
but to be immediately gratified. 

When we are old enough to be taught that desires 
must not be gratified, just anywhere and any time because 
of the harm that will follow such indiscriminate actions, 
then there inevitably comes a strain on the will. 


210 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


These appetites and desires are not sinful, but natural 
and absolutely necessary to life; our unwillingness to con- 
trol them is sin. 

Consequently when a child is asked to control his 

normal desires and keep them subservient to rational and 
moral ends he faces that which is no mean task. 
@ Strain is bound to come upon the will and it is not 
primarily due to a sinful nature, nor temptations from 
a devil, but a thing to be expected in an untrained and 
undisciplined life. 

And besides, the commands of the parent often seem 
arbitrary and unreasonable to the child; and, sad to say, 
they frequently are. 

If the child’s will to deny himself breaks down in 
presence of a desire that is too strong for him to control 
he will fight for what he wants and struggle to get that 
which he thinks he is being wrongfully deprived of; but 
his fierce struggle to overcome difficulties is not so much 
sin as a proof of his virility; though it is usually re-~ 
garded by older people as a proof of his native sinfulness. 

Later, when he actually begins to sin, he wishes that 
it were not wrong to get and do that which he likes; the 
sense of guilt takes away a part of his pleasure while he 
is eating the stolen cooky; which nevertheless tastes very 
good. 

We do wrong, to begin with, because we want what we 
want and peace is out of the question until we get it; 
but not because we want to do wrong. 

No one does wrong for wrong’s sake before he has 


WHERE DID SIN COME FROM? 211 


become very much hardened in sin; but in the very nature 
of things there is a fierce conflict between strong desire 
on one hand, and conscience and fear on the other. 

We all have to learn through much experience and 
practice to turn promptly from what we should not have 
or do, to something else that will at once absorb our 
attention and awaken new desires. 

@ We live in a world filled with good things and many 
desires awaken within us that cannot be gratified every 
time we are conscious of them. 

Most pleasures, in themselves, are both beautiful and 
right. | 

None of them, however, may be enjoyed by just any 
one at any time. 

It is sometimes wrong to work; and it is sometimes 
wrong to stop work—even to pray. 

The natural pleasure derived from food, exercise, sex, 
and from the many other sources of pleasure is sacred, 
and cause for gratitude; but to partake of these pleas- 
urable things whenever and wherever we like, is sinful. 

To eat food that is not ours, just because we are hun- 
gry, or to take another person’s money just because money 
would be useful to us, is a crime; in short, to gratify any 
desire, however proper in itself, with no more sense of 
propriety than if we were animals, is sin. 

God does not miraculously take away our appetite for 
food to keep us from stealing; nor remove our capacity 
for sexual pleasure to keep us from gratifying it unlaw- 
fully. 


212 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Over against our capacity and desire for immediate 
pleasure and the temptation to short cuts, stand reason 
and conscience. 

When reason and conscience approve, the gratification 
of any desire brings great happiness to which no after 
qualms are attached. 

Likewise the prompt rejection of a desire that may 
not properly be fulfilled brings happiness. 

If we succeed in shifting our attention from the regions 
of thought that feed and sharpen an improper desire we 
can usually keep the upper hand of it. 

In the hundred thousand shifts of circumstance in 
every life, almost everything by turns is lawful and un- 
lawful, permissible and forbidden. 

@ “Why did God make wrong deeds pleasurable ?”’ 

He did not make the wrong of the deed pleasurable. 

The act itself and the pleasure it affords are both 
right, and matters for thankfulness. 

The wrong connected with the deed is the work of the 
doer and he cannot make that wrongness pleasurable to 
himself; which is also a matter of thankfulness. 

A deed, good in itself, is wrong to perform when 
we cannot perform it without moral or physical injury 
to ourselves or others. 

Not even to keep us from sinning can God change 
the good nature of things and take their pleasure away 
from them for the time being. 

He wishes us to have our share in the delights of life. 
and lures us on by our desires to win them; then wisdom 


WHERE DID SIN COME FROM? 213 


and conscience step in to dictate that it has been decreed 
that they must be won lawfully or we shall suffer and 
cause others to suffer. 

@ “Why did God not so make us that it would give us 
pain to do wrong and happiness to do right?” 

As far as possible that 7s the way he made us. 

When first we do a conscious wrong, it hurts in spite 
of the accompanying pleasure; at first, it gives us both 
pain and pleasure to do wrong. 

That is why we are tempted; if we were incapable of 
pleasure there would be no temptation; or if we had no 
conscience there would be no temptation; or if it cost us 
no effort to defy it, conscience would lack opportunity 
for development. 

The conflict between the desire to fulfill: a pleasure and 
the desire to escape giving conscience offence is what 
we mean by temptation. 

It is just this unavoidable conflict that puts a strain 
upon the will. 

It is impossible to see how it could have been arranged 
differently. | 

A complex life in a complex world gives a human 
being no other choice oftentimes but to choose between 
pleasures possible to him on the one hand, and the painful 
sense of guilt and the fear of punishment on the other 
hand attached to them. 

Moreover, the severest strain does not always come 
from having to choose between the positively good 
and the positively bad; the greater struggle sometimes 


2I4 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


comes from having to choose between the good and the 
best. 

@ For example, a young man came to me and told me 
that he had worked hard, saved money, and bought forty 
acres of land. 

Now, however, the conviction had come to him that he 
ought to go to college; that he could be more useful in 
the world if he were an educated man. 

But to go to college, he would have both to sell his 
land and go in debt. 

Whereas, +f he did not go to college he could keep his 
land and probably have another forty acres earned during 
the time it would require to complete a college course. 

Now it was perfectly proper for a young man to work, 
save, and buy land as he had done and still wished to do; 
it was a noble example to many a youth. 

The alternative course of going to college, with the 
immediate sacrifices that it involved was likewise a noble 
thing to do, 

The young man was greatly tempted while choosing 
between good and better; between a lesser good that was 
near at hand, and a greater good that was remote, and 
costly. 

God himself could not so plan life and the universe 
that a young man would be able to acquire a four years 
college course in a day and that without work or cost. 

@ Choosing whether he would be a good king or a 
patient, suffering Messiah brought to Jesus a harrowing 
temptation. 


WHERE DID SIN COME FROM? 215 


Though the world greatly needed a good king, yet it 
needed a Messiah much more; and if Jesus had chosen 
to be a good king, after seeing it was not the best thing 
he could be, he would have sinned. 

The young man sinned when he gave up his education 
for his land. 

However, he still had a chance to make the second best 
use of his life; he could be a noble, intelligent farmer. 

But if he continued throughout his life to decide in 
favor of the lower choices, simply because they were 
easier and brought immediate results he would descend 
from a second to a lower rate character in an indefinite 
progression downward. 

@ Tito Melema, in Romola, is the classical example of a 
handsome, winsome, esthetic person who did nothing 
worse for a time than to choose the easier course. 

This way of choosing brought him at first much pleas- 
ure and applause; in the end his craving for pleasure and 
happiness became a disease. 

At last, his will atrophied, his body on fire, and his 
soul inflamed with false ambition, he had degenerated 
into a squirming serpent that would thrust his poisoned 
fangs into anything, however sacred, that stood in the 
way of the attainment of his illicit desires. 

Now Tito Melema did not become a cruel, vicious 
devil because he wanted or intended to be a devil; at first 
he was guilty of no more monstrous intent apparently 
than a uniform choice of the easier way for the time 
being. 


216 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Yet his sin passed beyond the ordinary stages of selfish- 
ness and became a deadly disease; his whole nature was 
set on fire by it and fiercely demanded gratification of 
every desire without delay. 

Tito Melema knew both refined and coarse pleasures; 
he also’ knew hell; but he never knew the noble joy of 
breaking his life to bit and bridle and driving with a 
close rein. 

@ How could we be placed in a world, fit to live in, that 
would not bring upon us a due measure of strain and 
temptation? 

Think of the discipline there is in so beautiful and 
small a matter as serving at your own family table: a 
nice, thick, juicy beefsteak is before you, for which you 
have appropriately given thanks; your appetite and power 
to digest your food are good; a wife and children whom 
you love are seated around the board; everything is ideal 
and heavenly; there is no enemy and nothing hostile vis- 
ible or invisible, anywhere about the house. 

The moment has come and you are ready to serve; 
how are you going to do it? 

Are you going to give the others all the best cuts and 
keep the poorest for yourself? Or will your course be 
the reverse? 

I shall make no confessions further than to say, I have 
felt the strain on my will many times. 

Our Polish scrub woman remarked that when they 
have a pie at their table, her husband takes one-half of it 
and leaves the other half for her and their four children. 


WHERE DID SIN COME FROM? 217 


No spirit from hell suggested that caper—he would be 
too much of a gentleman. 

@ Why we have made such a mystery of the origin and 
nature of sin I cannot understand; for the facts about 
sin seem to lie on the surface. 

It is very evident why we sin; our wills are not strong 
enough to bear the strain of such temptations as are in- 
volved in life itself. 

The problem of sin is to know how to get rid of it; 
to know how to strengthen the will to avoid temptation, 
and how to resist it when it is unavoidable. 

Why our wills are weak, and how they may be strength- 
ened, are subjects of the greatest importance. 


5. Who Is To BLAME FoR SIN? 
@ Insofar as he is able to avoid it, the one who sins is 
to blame. | 

But the blame does not end with him, for all who have 
had a share in the weakening of human wills; all who 
have helped in any way to create evil environments that 
inevitably lead to an increase of sin, share in the guilt 
which they have shared in producing. 

Any of us might be placed under circumstances that 
would overpower the resistance of our wills and lead us 
to commit a gross sin; situated as we are even, we are 
not without sin in its milder forms; and constantly have 
to repent and ask God’s forgiveness. 

In addition, we may foolishly put ourselves under such 
conditions as will prove too much for us and lead to 


218 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


gross sin, or we may be placed there by the cunning of 
others. 

' For there are assaults of temptation possible whose 
outcome no one may predict. 

@ These are what was in the mind of Jesus when He 
told His disciples to pray that they might not be led into 
temptation. 

All paltering with temptation should be avoided; for 
no one knows when he may pass the point where escape 
is no longer possible. 

Therefore, if we do not avoid hesitation in dealing 
with temptation we have taken the first step in sin. 

If ever the situation becomes so alive that the urge to 
act can drive the will into a corner, yielding is inevitable. 

“Playing with fire,” as it is called, often winds its vic- 
tim in coils of temptation that hypnotize him and paralyze 
his inhibitive powers. 

This accounts for much sin that is a great surprise to 

the public on its exposure and a greater surprise and 
humiliation to the offender. 
@ These highly wrought psychic states are no indications 
of any fault in the way we were made; for when reason, 
conscience, and emotion all combine to lift us from ordi- 
nary states to our highest psychic moods, we are able to 
face any crisis; we may face martyrdom, if our cause de- 
mands it, with all the joy of going to a feast. 

But when such highly wrought states are allowed to de- 
velop out of a tyrannical evil impulse apart from reason 


WHERE DID SIN COME FROM? 219 


and conscience, the most debasing sins and the foulest 
crimes may be committed. 

The criminal, and the martyr for truth, are supported 
in their unusual deeds by the same psychic power. 

The criminal has prostituted the gift to base uses, the 
martyr has glorified it. 

As often as life may be made to glow with feeling, 
that condition of soul makes work and duty a joy. 

Not until we have become morally insane can we com- 
mit crime in cold blood. 

But we are not required to do right in cold blood; 
there is a constraining power in goodness. 

We may, so to speak, put ourselves in such a position 
as to be tempted to do right. 

No one has discovered the real secret of life until he 
has first hand acquaintance with this fact. 

@ Whether we are finally swept into hell or into heaven 
it will be on the crest of a psychic wave. 

Therefore, look well after the heart, for out of it are 
the issues of life. 

“Tf there be any virtue and if there be any good, think 
on these things.” And if we do they will as certainly 
lift us up as dwelling on wrong thoughts will drag us 
down. 

The things upon which our thoughts habitually dwell, 
whether they be good or evil, finally have their way 
with us. 

Whoever would certainly avoid disaster to himself and 


220 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


others must not, for the fun of it, speed his automobile 
on a city street. 

@ We have now come to the heart of the problem and to 
the seat of our responsibility ;if we really want to augment 
our willpower to do right, we must exercise our wills 
in shortening the time required to slay a temptation, for- 
tify them by thinking such thoughts, by engaging in such 
work, and by keeping such company, as will add intensity 
to our stored-up emotional urge to do right. 

We must take a vow of total abstinence from the folly 
and sin of playing with fire; and from that which is only 
a little less dangerous, the folly of falling into lassitude 
and indifference toward the great interests of society. 

It is absolutely necessary that we should find something 
worthy to interest us; but we must learn that every desire 
gratified, good or bad, will appeal to us for a repetition. 

Honesty, love, the desire for knowledge, all these 
things are habits. 

Our whole being is ever tending to organize itself into 

a complex that will become a blessing or a curse. 
@ We must open our eyes to see that the subtler sins of 
respectable people tend to destroy the whole fabric of 
society, to injure the environments of life that we all 
share in common, and to increase sin and misery of every 
kind. 

We must come to understand and act on the under- 
standing that we have all shared, in a measure, the sin 
and guilt of the race. 

It is a dreadful thing to become a debauchee who is 


WHERE DID SIN COME FROM? 221 


capable of corrupting other lives and blasting the hopes 
of their friends for them; and it is no less a fearful 
thing to join the great company of respectable sinners 
who mildly poison all fountains of life and cause nations 
to sink into decay. 

Coarse vices represent madness and those who indulge 
in them are usually hunted down and suppressed; but 
those who commit respectable sins go unmolested until 
ruin overtakes society as a whole. 

Though brutal sin is frightful and dastardly, yet it is 
not the principal cause of social decay; the brutal sinners 
are too few, and too much feared by society, for it to 
allow them to undermine Christian civilization. 

@ The real destroyers of civilization are the many con- 
ventional sinners whose god is pleasure, whose glory is 
prestige, and whose heaven is a well-regulated selfish life. 

In torment shall they lift up their eyes when they 
have finished their work and caused society to disinte- 
grate. 

With all sinners, coarse and refined, Jesus pleads with 
outstretched hands; but He has no pleasures to offer 
except the joy of honest brotherhood and the love of 
truth and righteousness. 

Those who want nothing but loaves and fishes turn 
upon their heels and go away. They find nothing pleas- 
ing and much that is displeasing in Him. 

All who turn from Christ, from the inspiring vision of 
His kingdom, from the comforting and constraining 
love of God, and from the sustaining and uplifting influ- 


222 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


ence of Christian fellowship—these are they who are 
to blame for the sin and sorrow of the world. 

It is not so much the kingdom of God beyond the sky 
that we need to think about as the kingdom of God on 
earth. 


6. Witt Gop DAMN A SINNER? 
@ I do not know, but I do know that sinners will damn 
God. 

They will feed upon His bounty, ride upon His powers, 
let Him carry their load, and make Him their slave; they 
will do everything but allow Him to become their senior 
partner in business and their bosom companion in 
pleasure. 

They are only too ready to use God’s energy and His 
treasures of wealth for their own poor purposes; but 
when He seeks a controlling voice in their business, and 
in their lives, they refuse their consent and continue to 
make Him the slave of their selfish desires. 

And when they have damned God, they have thrice 
damned themselves and the innocent with them. 

And when they succeed in breaking down civilization, 
or when they impoverish the earth, or when they force 
the weak to cry for work and bread, or when they 
plunge the world into war, or when they drive the busi- 
ness world to madness, or when they arouse bestial pas- 
sions, or when they cause pandemonium to break loose 
in murders and riots and pestilential plagues, then they 


WHERE DID SIN COME FROM? 223 


cry out in their madness and unbelief, “Now where is 
your good, wise, and all-powerful God?” 

Through their selfishness, bindness, and disregard of 
God’s overtures, they have sent Him to hell; they have 
sent Him to suffer with the damned. 

And this very day, in many a hell on earth, God is 
calling to His good sons and daughters to suffer and 
sacrifice yet more with Him until He can lead the rebels 
out of the hell which they have created for Him, for 
themselves, and for helpless women and children. 

The saddest thing about hell is that God and His good 
children have to go to hell with the bad; with those who 
have had most to do with the hell-making. 


7, Is THERE ANY VALUE IN SIN? 


@ When sin has run its course, its insanity, its heinous- 
ness, its pain, and its sorrow, stand somewhat fully re- 
vealed. 

When we see how much it costs God and humanity to 
clear up the wreckage of sin and to renew the world 
in love and righteousness, it should have the value of 
increasing our hatred for all evil. 

Sin also should have the value of revealing the depths 
of love; for the love that voluntarily enters the flames to 
rescue the perishing, stands in glorious contrast with the 
sin that lighted the flames. 

The love that forgives its enemies and suffers with 
them, shines with infinite splendor against the inky black- 


224 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


ness of sin that will work ruin before it will deny itself 
a fleeting pleasure. 

There is some value in knowing where hell is, and how 
it hurts. 

If sin, by its awful consequences, has made us fear it 
and hate it, then it has resulted in some good. 

We ought to be made safer and stronger by knowing 
these things. 

If we insist upon forming the acquaintance of sin and 
suffering, it is important that we get an elementary 
knowledge of them in this primary school. 

God is not going to trust us with greater things as 
long as we show that we are not safe to be entrusted 
with small things. 

@ Shall we go on sinning then that grace may abound 
and that we may gain a deeper knowledge of sin? 

God forbid! There will be plenty of sin left for our 
painful enlightenment after we have done our best to 
prevent it all. 

There is no good in picturing the horrors of sin unless 
we put them in contrast with the joys of righteousness. 

Conversely, while redeeming love is our gospel, yet it 
is never love divorced from law. 

Many of us know how to enjoy our work and duty 
when we are busily engaged in doing them; but there 
is not one of us who could long be trusted if there were 
not some inexorable laws back of him that he could not 
violate with impunity. 

A good business man truly loves his business; but if 


WHERE DID SIN COME FROM? 225 


his business would prosper just the same if he did not 
attend to it faithfully, he would not long continue in it 
for the mere love of it; his carelessness would soon de- 
stroy his love and business both. 

There is probably no joy greater than that afforded 
by the Christian ministry, but if a minister’s work would 
prosper just the same without him on the job, laxness 
would surely follow. | 
@ When one meets a living temptation, it is good to have 
the deterrent consequences of sin as well as the constrain- 
ing power of love and truth help to save him. 

Love and truth can not be fully taught except against 
a background of hate and falsehood. 

The knowledge that heaven is at hand and that hell 
is but a step away, gives one the best fighting chance to 
win the former and avoid the latter. 

I do not think we preach love too much; but to the 
contrary, because we isolate it from the deeper facts of 
life, our picture of love is weak and quite lacking in at- 
tractiveness. 


CHAPTER SLX 
DID MAN “FALL UPWARD”? 


Was there a human “fall’’? 
Could man have avoided sin altogether ? 
Has man won character through sin? 


Does the law of evolution guarantee progress 
will continue? 


@ Did man fall “upward’’? 

Some contend that he did; that his first sins were in 

the direction of self-discovery and self-development ; that 
his present state of character and intelligence is not due 
to a fall from a perfect state, but to an upward move- 
ment through many mistakes and sins from a lower con- 
dition. 
@ Opposed to this view is the belief that one full-grown 
man and one full-grown woman were created instantane- 
ously; the man from dust, the woman from one of the 
man’s ribs; and that from the first moment of their exis- 
tence their mental and moral capacity was perfection 
itself. 

From the hour of his creation, the man was able to 
walk and talk with God who was present with him in 
human form. 

This first man was miraculously endowed with a lan- 

226 


DID MAN “FALL UPWARD”? 227 


guage that was adequate as a medium of self-expression 
and ample for the conveyance of all that God wished to 
communicate to him. 

While he had no one but God with whom he could talk 
—before the woman was created—yvet his linguistic ability 
was sufficient for him without hesitation to give names 
to all the animals and birds as they filed past him at 
God’s command; sufficient enough for him to remember 
these names and pass them on to posterity. 

The man and his wife were also born full-grown 
morally and were easily equal to rendering obedience to 
God in every particular ; so morally capable were they that 
their eating of a forbidden apple was an act of unpar- 
donable sin; an offense so needless and inexcusable that 
it merited eternal punishment for them and all their pos- 
terity. 

For their single act of disobedience, God pronounced 
the sentence of death upon them and cursed the earth with 
weeds and briars to make them earn their living by the 
sweat of their brow. 

And the woman was still further burdened by having 
childbirth made painful. 

@ The moral breakdown was as sudden and complete as 
their creation had been—according to this view—and the 
change of environment so swift and drastic, that it is hard 
to see how this method of creation worked out, by its 
own testimony, in anywise superior to that of evolution. 

My own opinion is that of the two methods, that of 

evolution has many advantages over its rival. 


228 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Whatever the facts may be, it is now very com- 
monly believed that man began where the highest ani- 
mals of that day left off and parted company with 
him. 

If this be true, then man began with such means of 
communication and habits of life as he inherited; a heri- 
tage not to be despised. 

When self-consciousness began to dawn, man had 
crossed the line which separated the “manlike’ from 
man; he had become endowed with a soul. 

And this enrichment of his nature could not have taken 
place until a body for it to inhabit had reached a degree 
of development approximating that of the present human 
body. 

Of course, the first men would not have the refinement 
that comes only with the development of articulate speech 
and general culture. 

Human beings of the present time without these are 

anything but attractive. We do not need to go far to 
find people who are more repulsive than animals. 
@ In the beginning of human life, no less than now, one 
hermit person could not have improved his condition 
without other persons to associate with him and help 
him do it. 

Therefore, there must have once been a primitive so- 
ciety engaged in getting its first simple lessons in human 
experience. 

There were fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, 
and neighbors. Young men found it no more necessary 
to marry their sisters then than now. According to this 


DID MAN “FALL UPWARD”? 229 


view the problem as to where Cain got his wife drops 
out. 

@ If men rose from ancestors on the highest possible 
animal level, they had from the beginning of their human 
experience physical training, five cultivated senses, and 
well-formed habits that enabled them to cope with their 
primitive environments. 

With these habits to guide them and their stern en- 
forcement of these rules of life to hold them in check (for 
even animals severely discipline their young) they were 
much safer than would have been possible if they had 
not known the language of the forest and the cunning of 
all its other inhabitants. 

From the very beginning these primitive human beings 
would know, as well as their ancestors knew, how to pro- 
vide themselves a living and how to protect themselves 
and care for their young. 

They would have their Joshuas as truly as we have 
had our Washingtons and Grants. Even cattle and 
wolves have their leaders, mighty in valor. 

Of course, men were not cultivated in the beginning; 
even now, there are a good many people left without 
culture who are less clean than the animals. 

On first emerging from the animal state, men would 
not know how to be as morally degraded as some men 
now are in modern civilization. 

There is all the difference in the world between the 
coarseness of a primitive, uncultivated man of the forest 
and the coarseness of a man who has degenerated in the 
midst of intellectual and moral culture. 


230 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Even our finest college men can look pretty rough cus- 
tomers after working awhile in far-off lumber camps; 
and our uncouth ancestors doubtless looked much more 
shaggy and unkempt. 

Nevertheless, there must have been some pretty rugged 
and purposeful individuals among them or they would 
have been exterminated. 

@ And we know they did more than hold their own, they 
advanced. 

Yesterday I picked up a paper which raised the ques- 
tion of whether man was “created or evolved.” 

But there are no such alternatives in the mind of an 
evolutionist who believes in God; to him the alternatives 
are, did God create man from the dust in a minute, di- 
rectly, or did God create him from the dust by the slow 
process of evolution? 

It is easy for us all to believe that God used the best 
method. 

So far as there is any evidence of which of these two 
methods He used, it is all on the side of evolution. 

The Christian evolutionist believes that God makes 
everything, that He makes the human spirit in his own 
image, and that He dwells in His child to help him 
through all his upward struggles. 

However He did it, God never made a body for a 
human spirit that He was not willing to live in Himself. 
@ If we should take a cultivated twentieth-century man 
and wife, who know a thousand and one things that the 
frst human beings could not have known, and put them 


DID MAN “FALL UPWARD”? 231 


in the wildest jungles without any equipment but their 
bare hands, exiled for good from civilization, it is a 
serious question whether they could keep alive at all. 

The innocent and inexperienced Adam and Eve of 
tradition would have been the most poorly equipped per- 
sons imaginable to win out in a struggle for existence 
in the primeval forest. 

If only one man and one woman had come to our 
American shores in some Mayflower vessel there is not 
the least likelihood that they would ever have been heard 
from again. 

How infinitely better a primitive race of men, balanced 
and buttressed by well-formed habits in a familiar en- 
vironment, would have been equipped to survive. 

@ And a sudden fall in morals on their part would have 
been far less probable. 

Such a young man might have killed some one belong- 
ing to a hostile neighboring tribe, but he would not 
likely have killed his own brother over a religious dispute 
as Cain slew Abel. 

If one takes the word of the traditional view of crea- 
tion, then after the briefest period, the situation of 
the race was far worse than that under evolution. 

According to the traditional account, in the face of a 
perfect start, practically all men became savages in a 
few generations; and in a comparatively short time so 
wicked that God had to destroy them all except Noah 
and his family. 

In comparison with such a grewsome picture as this, a 


232 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


good bit of rudeness and crudeness to start with would 
be infinitely preferable. 

It is the habit of cultivated sinners to think themselves 
much superior to unrefined saints—but they are not. 

After the human family became actually sinful, as it 
certainly did, its future offspring were neither better nor 
worse by reason of how the human family came to its 
immoral state. 

At the present time, we are not so far removed from 
the savage but that a person reared in the best of Chris- 
tian homes may become a beast in less than ten years. 
@ Unless he prefers to leave it an open question, each 
one must choose between the two competing methods of 
introducing man into the world; but certainly it would 
be very unbecoming and un-Christian for us to fight about 
how we came to be imperfect and destroy the good results 
of the work of correction that has already been performed. 


1. Was THERE A HuMAN FALL? 


@ Nothing is more certain than that there was. 

Throughout all history there have been retrograde 
movements in morals; and at the present time, we see 
much of it going on around us with our own eyes. 

The further man is removed from the animal, the 
farther and harder he may fall. 

The native ferocity of early tribes is soon spent and 
is not comparable with the settled moods of moral 
degradation that may and do occur among civilized men. 

When imagination, intelligence, and will take up their 


DID MAN “FALL UPWARD”? 233 


abode in a physical body located in the midst of an 
opulent and complex society the possibility of a real and 
dreadful fall is imminent. 

Man’s power to image things not present is a source 
of great temptation to him not known, or but little known, 
to the animals. 

Through his ability to make absent things present to 
his mind, man creates a desire almost as compelling as 
if the object of his ambition, or the object of his lust 
were before his eyes. 

@ Yet the power of imagination is necessary to all in- 
vention, to all great achievements in the arts, the sciences, 
and the virtues of civilization. 

Without imagination man could never rise; neither 
could he fall very low. 

An animal has strong eaten! appetites, but they are 
not kept at white heat all the time by a vivid imagination. 

He has rest from the urge of appetites for the most 
part until they may be gratified in a natural and necessary 
way. 

But through his imagination, man may keep his vari- 
ous desires and passions aroused a large share of the 
time. 

And he is inclined to do this because of the pleasure 
which it gives him; but if he harbors wrong thoughts, de- 
sires will be awakened and intensified that will lead him 
inevitably to sin; desires that will call louder and louder 
for complete satisfaction in overt act. 

If one thinks about anything long enough and visualizes 


234 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


it clearly enough, he will try to get it whether it is right 
for him to have it or not. 

Not to mention more serious lapses, this is the reason 

why some people buy automobiles when they cannot af- 
ford them. 
@] Moreover, man’s possible pleasures and blessings are 
a thousand times more numerous than those of any ani- 
mal; and the well-being of society imposes a thousand 
prohibitions upon him unknown either to animals or to 
primitive men. 

All this brings a strain upon the human will that is out 
of all proportion to the strain that is felt by, and in, 
simple animal life. 

Yet the power to make remote things present and alive 

is a divine endowment. Rightly exercised it makes man 
a genius; it guarantees his progress in every line of noble 
attainment ; like faith, it is “the substance of things hoped 
for, the evidence of things not seen.” 
@ In addition to the imagination, a highly developed 
reason is a source of great temptation. Man’s reason 
can devise ways and means of gratifying his glowing de- 
sires, the evil as well as the good. 

Highly developed reason creates temptations in new 
forms that cannot exist where the intelligence is low. 

Not only is there initial pleasure in the desires which 
men keep alive through imagination, but there is intensi- 
fied pleasure in devising ways and means for the complete 
fulfillment of such desires; and when to these two strong 
sources of temptation there is present yet a third, a 


DID MAN “FALL UPWARD”? 235 


powerful will, we begin to see how the modern wickedness 
of man may put the beasts of the forest and the cave 
men to shame. 

In comparison with modern reprobates, the cave men 
would be classed among saints. 

@ The modern man has often fallen far below any sinful 
condition known to the primitive man. 

The brighter the heaven to which one may attain, the 
deeper and hotter the hell to which he may descend. 

Not only in the beginning of human history did man 
fall, but many of his offspring have kept on falling in 
spite of all that the opportunities and restraints of Chris- 
tian civilization could do to help them. 

The staggering fact that confronts us is that so many 
go on falling in each succeeding generation; all fall a 
little, and many fall hard and low. 

This is why Christian progress is so retarded. 

The Christian ideals and aspirations of the better older 
people are never altogether fulfilled because so many of 
the rising generation never learn them or else forget 
them. 

Our fond hopes that children will profit by the example 
and precepts of their Christian parents are not always 
realized; and our expectation that the rare opportunities 
of education will produce an educated society fit for 
democracy is in a measure disappointed. 

The extent to which people still fall in our day is 
appalling; and the excuse for it now, as in the story of 
the Garden of Eden, is that forbidden fruit is good for 


236 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


food, a delight to the eyes, and something that will make 
one wise. 

@ In some quarters, there is more rising than falling; 
in Others, the falling is quite in excess of the rising. 

The rise and fall of communities and the rise and fall 
of nations make up the greater portion of human history. 

Few if any are the instances where national disaster 
has not been preceded by general moral decay. 

The old seers who discoursed on the fall of man, very 
likely failed to see all the fine shades of a completed phi- 
losophy, but they were far better observers than some 
present day writers who fail to recognize and allow for 
any fall in the history of the race. 

Some modern writers, if they have comfortable quar- 
ters, plenty to eat, leisure to write, and a fad notion to 
promote, can see nothing behind or ahead of the present 
race but steady improvement. 

Weak nations may be exploited, a continent of em- 
pires may sink, the poor may curse, starve, and rot be- 
cause so-called civilization is “‘red in tooth and claw,’ and 
yet some people will see no fall of man in the process. 

They never will see it until they, too, are tumbled out 

of their snug berths and feel the consuming fires of a 
human-made hell. 
@ Many of the pitiable wretches on earth are not much 
to blame for the fall of man in process in our day; some 
of them were never high enough to fall; they have been 
kept down by the iron heel of those who have fallen upon 
them. 


DID MAN “FALL UPWARD”? 237 


But many of those who did get high enough to 
fall have done so and have dragged others down with 
them. 

Leaving out of the account our neglect and evil treat- 
ment of uncivilized tribes, many of the weaker nations 
are elbowed aside politically, economically, socially; they 
are frequently imposed and trampled upon by powerful 
bullying nations who not only rob them for a little profit, 
but drug them with opium and set them on fire with 
spirituous liquors. 

For a century America has sent whisky along with 
missionaries to Africa, and England sent opium to China 
with her missionaries. 

And this is but a sample of what is done by Christian 

nations to degrade and keep down those whom they 
should help. 
@ In spite of all our sins, nevertheless there has been 
enough moral progress in the world to prove that progress 
is possible; and enough to encourage all right-minded 
people to take a firmer hand in the great work of civilizing 
and Christianizing the race. 

To have a few people fall clear to the bottom, would 
be nothing like so discouraging as to have great numbers 
fall half-way, for that would jeopardize the whole struc- 
ture of organized society. 

The production of a few supermen brings no comfort 
and encouragement unless the bulk of society can be 
induced to raise their standards of intelligence and true 
brotherhood. 


238 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


@ Until we recognize the fact that men can fall, and fall 
hard; until we learn why they fall and how to prevent it, 
we can move forward with no reasonable sense of social 
security, 

Low as ancient civilizations have fallen, modern civili- 
zation is capable of a far greater fall, and we shall do 
well to act upon this fact before it is too late. 


2. Coutp Man HaAveE AvorDeD Sin ALTOGETHER? 
@ It does not appear that he could; at least, none of us 
have. 

A baby can not know right from wrong because at the 
beginning it knows nothing. It must learn from hard 
knocks. 

It is a beautiful and innocent impulse that causes baby 
to reach for the pretty light of the burning candle; but 
there is no danger of anyone forming the habit of burn- 
ing himself. 

In most things, however, the situation is different; 
pleasure and not pain accompanies our actions, and it 
may be some time before we learn whether a particular 
action is right or wrong. 

Our judgment has developed to the point where we 
know many things to be wrong that were not known 
to be wrong in the beginning. 

When man first tasted the fermented juice of grapes, 
he had no more reason for thinking it wrong to drink 
grape juice than to drink water. 

The growing desire for it would not appear to be 


DID MAN “FALL UPWARD”? 239 


wrong until intoxication followed with its brood of evil 
consequences. 

Then it would appear that it was wrong to drink too 
much wine; but while attempting to use it moderately 
the desire might increase until a man would be led to 
excess in spite of himself. Thereupon he might decide in 
view of this danger that it was wrong to drink wine 
altogether. 

@ Whatever one’s views on total abstinence may be, at 
least this will serve to illustrate how man has had to 
learn the difference between right and wrong. 

Rest after labor is both pleasant and necessary, but 
just how much one should rest is sometimes difficult to 
decide ; and before one is aware of it he may have begun 
to form the sinful habit of laziness. 

Sin is often a question of more or less, rather than 
a question of this or that. 

In most things, the human race has had to learn what 
was right and wrong by experimentation; but by the 
time that man had made up his mind what was right, he 
had in many cases formed wrong habits and created con- 
ditions that made it difficult for him to readjust his 
conduct. 

When a man has grown wealthy by a method that 
proves in the course of time in the judgment of others 
to be wrong, or not best for the common good, it is 
difficult to make him see that it is wrong and often 
more difficult to get him to change his methods. 

Where our interests are at stake, it is almost impossible 


240 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


for us to see how any course of action is wrong which 
all good people in the past have followed. 

@ The more experienced members of society may see the 
harmfulness of many things in which the less experienced 
are unable to see any harm at all. 

Consequently there are always those who feel that the 
imposition of certain standards is simply the effort of 
one class to take advantage of another. 

We should probably be surprised to know how often 
children in good homes believe themselves to be treated 
unfairly; who think that they are denied innocent pleas- 
ures because parents want to have their own way. 

It is by no means an easy thing for a child to learn 
which things are right and which are wrong; especially 
when he sees so many standards in vogue by people who 
have friendly associations with his parents. 

A little boy who was affectionate, and generally obedi- 
ent, expressed the opinion to his parents one day that 
this business of doing or not doing certain things was 
merely a question of size and authority. 

He was looking forward to the time when he would 

be big enough to do as he pleased. It was not that he 
wanted to do wrong; he had a new idea which he thought 
was valid. 
@ His father told him that because big people knew 
more, they were under greater obligations to do right 
than when they were small; that he did not expect his 
little son to be as good now as when he became older 
and wiser. ! 


DID MAN “FALL UPWARD”? 241 


That, he explained, was why he had sympathy and 
patience with him when he did not render prompt obedi- 
ence. 

But seeing that the child was not yet convinced, the 
father said: “I am under greater obligation than you are 
to do right because I am older and know better why I 
should. So if in anything I do wrong, please tell me; 
and if I do not obey, you may punish me in any way 
you like. Of course, if it is a question of judgment my 
judgment must rule because I am older and wiser. But 
I promise to be honest with you, and if we both agree 
after due consideration that a certain thing is wrong, 
then you may punish me in any way you like if I do not 
obey.” . 

Then the father tried to explain to the child why cer- 
tain things were right and other things were wrong and 
why we all were greatly tempted at times to do things 
that we should not do. 

He also tried to get the child to see that none of us 
could be good without surrounding ourselves with good 
influences nor without practicing to be good just as he 
practiced throwing a ball in order to be able to throw 
hard and straight. 

Because the little fellow was just then learning to throw 
well by incessant practice, the father laid special emphasis 
upon the necessity of practice in being good. 

At last the truth sank into the child’s mind that his 
father, even more than himself, was under authority. 
In proof of it, soon after this experience when the little 


242 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


fellow saw a neighbor fall from his carriage while in a 
state of intoxication, he reported what he saw with great 
excitement and said, “You see, he did not practice hard 
enough to be good when he was a boy.” 

@ If no one before us had ever sinned, every one of us 
would, nevertheless, have to go through the struggle of 
this little boy. 

But it makes it much more difficult when we see other 
people doing wrong things and having a good time, for 
us to believe that they are wrong. 

That every single person from the first man till now, 

could have grown up in the world without ever having 
once disobeyed or sinned against God or man is a thing 
absolutely inconceivable. 
@ At the beginning of the race, while numbers were few, 
it was possible to live on wild fruits and animals; but 
the intellectual and moral development of man, not less 
than his food necessities, compelled him in the course 
of time to branch out into herding, farming, inventions, 
and great business enterprises. 

Therefore, if men had been able to come through the 
strain of temptation clean in the first simple stages of 
their existence, it is not at all likely that they could have 
routed successfully all the greater temptations of later 
periods. 

Selfish business interests, group habits, and foolish 
sentiments about rank and precedence would almost cer- 
tainly have grown up; and provincial and class jealousies 
would have appeared in society. 


DID MAN “FALL UPWARD”? 243 


Even good people, as we know them, do not like to 
see their comfortable and snug little world disturbed by 
outsiders; even in good people, there are a thousand little 
watch dogs that snarl and bite when people outside their 
group ask for a reckoning. 

And sooner or later there appear what may be called 
the sins of the good. 

@ The best of people must be brought repeatedly to the 
light for repentance and reconsecration. 

Even a Christian Church that is good enough and ener- 
getic enough to succeed will soon discover certain Church 
sins that have incidentally associated themselves with its 
zeal and success; to continue to grow in grace even a 
Church must often repent. | 

The same thing is true of the minister. If he is de- 
voted, earnest, and successful, he will soon discover little 
sins of selfishness and ambition that will grow to great 
size unless they are repented and weeded out of his life. 

The greatest saint will soon discover that he is not 
wholly free from the pride and selfish enjoyment that 
come from being a saint; hence, he, too, must repent of 
his sins. 

I once knew a man who was as proud as a peacock 
of the fact that he was not proud. 

Of course, men could not have avoided sin altogether. 
Indeed, the best goodness of which human beings are 
capable is the desire and determination to become better ; 
the determination to win a wider field in which to honor 
God and serve their fellow men. “If we say we have 


244 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


no sin, we lie and do not the truth; but if we repent of 
our sins, God is just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse 
us from all unrighteousness.”’ 

@ Though it is absolutely impossible that the human race 
could have come all the way from the first man to me 
without ever having sinned once on the road, yet the 
race as a whole, and every one of us in particular, might 
have done very much better and have saved ourselves 
from much sorrow and shame. 

Human beings can no more learn how to live without 
some mistakes and some sins than they can learn to 
walk and run without sometimes falling; but when they 
make no improvement and let a sin become a fixed habit, 
great guilt and much unnecessary suffering is their por- 
tion. 

One reason why the moral state of affairs gets to be 
so bad and local and national crises recur so often is 
that we do not try as we should to see the race as one 
family; we fail to visualize the true all-inclusive goal of 
life; we define right and wrong in the confused light of 
a thousand little conflicting goals. The result is con- 
fusion worse confounded. 

@ Relatively good groups of people sometimes war 
against other groups equally good; and the vicious are 
always at their evil practices. 

Unless these warring groups of society can unify their 
interests in the vision of Christ, they will create the hot- 
test and vastest lake of fire that this world has ever 
known and all be consumed in it. 


DID MAN “FALL UPWARD”? 245 


Now that society has grown so large, so intricate, and 
so complex, we shall all need to become wiser and better 
or we shall become much worse. 

Our very goodness, with its accompanying material 
success, has brought us to the place where many re- 
adjustments must be made if we are to go forward to 
greater social achievements. 

Our very success may bring a crushing defeat unless 
we use the great cosmic forces, that have now come into 
our possession, to bless and not to curse. 


4. Has Man Won CHARACTER THROUGH SIN? 

@ Through recognizing it, repenting of it, and over- 
coming it, yes; insofar as he has failed to do these 
things, no. “Of our vices we can frame a ladder if we 
will tread beneath our feet each deed of shame.”’ 

If, however, we do not tread our deeds of shame 
beneath our feet, they will form into millstones about 
our necks to sink us in a sea of corruption. 

Through contact with temptation and sin much char- 
acter has been won and much character has been lost. 

The exact proportion between loss and gain no one 
knows; but the loss to some has been as great as the 
gain to others. 

The army of noble men and women who have pro- 
gressively overcome their sins and waged a mighty war- 
fare against the encroachments of sin upon God’s human 
family throughout the world, are much stronger and 
better because of the battles which they have fought. 


246 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


On the other hand, those who have yielded to tempta- 
tion and have dragged others down with them have both 
suffered and caused injury beyond computation. 


5. Dors THE LAw or EvoLuTION GUARANTEE PROGRESS 
WILL CONTINUE? 


@ The all too prevalent idea of this generation that, 
somehow, things will get better anyway is working tre- 
mendous harm. Evolution guarantees progress if we 
throw our whole lives into the process; but if we neglect 
to do so, evolution guarantees certain defeat. 

@ Here is an example of what is happening among us: 
An old man I know dropped his Church. Although he 
had started going to the bad fast enough to frighten 
his friends, he felt perfectly secure against calamity in 
the thought that evolution was working everything up 
from a lower to a higher state. Yet his deterioration 
since the time he was the superintendent of a Baptist 
Sunday School was both pitiful and frightful. 

A more stupid man could not be found than one who 
slackens his pace and lessens his endeavors because he 
has come to believe in evolution. 

One wonders where such a man got his information; 
or rather, he knows that such a man has practically no 
information on the subject. 

The number of people who are relying on the belief 
that things will continue to improve simply because they 
have in the past is the most discouraging feature of this 


DID MAN “FALL UPWARD”? 247 


generation. Actually, many people can be found today 
who think that about all cause for fear has been removed 
from the world. 

The lowly men who by the help of God climbed the 
rough and steep paths and lifted the world to the high 
levels of modern Christian civilization were worthy of 
more praise than we ever shall be able to bestow upon 
them ; but we who fall from those splendid heights by our 
greed or lust or easygoing ways, we are the Adams who 
fall and bring the heaviest curse upon the race. 

It takes a full and rounded knowledge of the facts of 
life and intimate fellowship with our Master to serve, 
to rejoice, and to suffer like gods if need be for the 
betterment of all mankind. 7 
@ Recently, as well as sundry times in the past, there has 
been much progress downward as well as upward which 
might have been foreseen; for many of those whose moral] 
natures have atrophied have the keenest and best trained 
intellects. 

And unless we sharpen our wits to match their cunning 
they will surely defeat us, regardless of how much we 
implore God to overcome evil. 

No one need think that the world will grow any better 
unless some one helps to make it better. 

Let selfishness spread, let the light of God go out in 
soul after soul, let sin get beyond control, and a general 
collapse is bound to follow. 

Every sin committed means another nail driven into 


248 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


some innocent hand, another crown of thorns pressed 
upon some noble brow, another spear thrust into some 
forgiving Heart. 

@ The fact that evolution works both ways, warns us to 
be doubly careful. 

Change the conditions for the worse or leave out any 
vital factor and the evolutionary tide imperceptibly turns 
and moves irresistibly toward some undesirable goal. 

Even the slightest change in the currents of thought 
or action has a marked effect; a slight change of view 
will produce a Holy Roller, or a filthy ascetic, or a sickly 
sentimentalist, or a Saint Paul, or an unbeliever; every 
variety of saint and sinner results from a process of evo- 
lution; the highest heaven and the deepest hell are 
achieved by a more or less gradual process. 

The method of evolution, properly understood, is one 
of the most sobering as well as one of the most inspiring 
truths known to man. 

Mere passwords count for nothing before the law of 
evolution; it sends us unerringly to the place where we 
belong whether it is to the top of civilization or to the 
bottom of the rubbish heap; evolution plays no tricks and 
bestows no unmerited favors. 

Whether one goes up or down, it is by a well-established 
law enforced without fear of favor. 

God has gone before us in Jesus to open the way, 
He dwells in us to illuminate the way, He works in 
nature’s forces about us to guard the way. 

A stone-blind individual who is indifferent to Jesus 


DID MAN “FALL UPWARD”? 249 


and to the illuminating presence of God ‘has his face 
turned toward destruction regardless of where he stands 
in the social scale. 

@ The law of evolution drives home in its most telling 
ways its teaching that we must become as eager to learn 
as little children and that we must render prompt obedi- 
ence to the laws of our being and to the laws of God’s 
universe in which we dwell. 

First the blade of curiosity, then the stalk of careful 
study, then the full ear of sound life principle and prac- 
tice ; if not, then first, ignorance, next confusion, and then 
defeat. 

If in our extreme conservatism, we refuse to let God’s 
plan unfold wealth of life, new to us, we work ourselves 
and those about us irreparable harm; or if in our extreme 
and reckless liberalism we build on half truths, we shall 
be the cause of the fall of the great structure of civiliza- 
tion. 

Evolution spells hope or despair according to our atti- 

tude toward the inexorable laws of God. 
@ The Garden of Eden was but the tiniest miniature of 
the paradise which God wishes us to make on this earth; 
and the fall of the first men, in comparison with the 
fall that we may suffer, is like a stubbing of his toe by 
a child in comparison with a fall of a man from a tower 
which he has built himself. 

If sin took from primitive man his garden, our sin 
may cause empires to crash, and poverty and war to 
prevail throughout the length and breadth of the earth. 


250 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Men who have risen to the position of world conquer- 
ors, must do so according to the laws of God or in the 
end suffer a smashing defeat. 

At this stage of our evolution we stand face to face 
with a choice between a paradise too glorious to picture, 
and a hell too awful to describe. 

God sets the two alternatives before us and offers His 
boundless aid if we will choose the upward course, but 
man can not slip out of his responsibility to choose be- 
tween these alternatives. 

We ourselves are the mighty Adams and Eves to whom 
God is saying, “Ye may freely eat of all but the for- 
bidden fruit.” 

And the serpents of temptation, that have grown in 
might and cunning since man began his career, are trying 
to beguile us by saying, “If ye eat of the forbidden fruit 
ye shall be well dressed, mighty to rule, and satisfied with 
much pleasure.” 

While the earth lasts, the race will remain on trial 
as to whether it can be trusted with life in the Garden 
of Eden. 


CHAPTER X 
WHY DID JESUS DIE? 


Did Jesus die to appease the moral indigna- 
tion of God? 

Did Jesus die as a substitute? 

Without the shedding of innocent blood, was 
salvation possible? 

What great truths did the old orthodoxy con- 
serve? | 


How, then, does the death of Jesus aid in 
our salvation? 


@ Jesus died because His leading countrymen could not 
endure Him. 

His teachings and conduct so irritated, angered, and 
frightened them that they had Him put to death. 

He could have escaped martyrdom by making Himself 
agreeable or by going away from them; but His char- 
acter would not permit Him to live differently, and His 
love would not let Him go away from those who needed 
Him. “If I go away ye shall die in your sins.” 

Jesus was put to death because He was like God. If 
He had been like His enemies, they would have been 
greatly pleased with Him. 

Zoi 


252 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


@ If they had not desired to kill Jesus, God would not 
have had Him put to death as a preparatory means of 
saving the world. 

It would have been comparatively easy for God to 
have saved a world that was not blind enough and wicked 
enough to kill Jesus and the prophets. 

There would have been no need of blood—if no one 
had been wicked enough to shed blood. 

History plainly shows, however, that God’s human ap- 
proach to the world has been stubbornly resisted from 
the beginning until now. 

When God lives in human lives, He immediately comes 
into contact with selfish interests and false ideas. 

When God gets expressed in human word and deed, 
He appears so different from the popular foolish notions 
of Him that many will not believe that it is He. 

Hence, they seek to crucify the living God, and con- 

tinue to worship their false idea of God. 
@ When God is no more to them than an idea, He 
causes selfish men very little trouble; but when He con- 
fronts them as a man, He either saves them from their 
sins or else He irritates them to the point of madness. 

When the Pharisees saw their God clearly and humanly 
expressed in Jesus, they thought He was the prince of 
devils. So they killed Him in the name of Jehovah, and 
thought Jehovah was very much pleased with them for 
doing it. That being true, naturally they had no use 
for Jesus nor the salvation which He offered. 

@ Since Jesus went away, we later generations have been 


WHY DID JESUS DIE? 253 


inclined to treat even Him as a pleasing idea, merely one 
that comforts without disturbing overmuch. 

A selfish person does not want the real God; he wants 
to retain his perverted idea of God and his distorted idea 
of salvation. 

In a blind way many people try to save themselves; 
they try to do and get that which they think will be good 
for them, without knowing what is right and best either 
for themselves or others. 

Many who think they are sure that they would like 
to live with God in heaven when they die, despise and 
reject Him when He tries to enter their pleasures and 
business here. 

They love Jesus away off in heaven but would not 
love Him but hate Him for interfering with their whole 
way of life if He lived in their city under some different 
name. 

We often laud the Jesus of nineteen hundred years ago 

because he rebuked the Pharisees; but if His exact dupli- 
cate should arise among us today, it is not at all certain 
who of us would be His friends and who His foes. 
@ A man in our midst who would speak God’s mind 
concerning us and everything we do, would be bitterly 
opposed by the Pharisees in business, state, and Church; 
He would be looked upon by many as a fanatic and not 
as a saviour. 

Many of the pleasure-loving middle class, who now 
call themselves Christians, would forsake Him. 

The gunmen of the underworld would not so much as 


254 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


think of Him unless they learned that He carried money ; 
and then, they would endeavor to rob Him. 

All this explains why it costs to save. 

We stupidly think we could enjoy God in heaven be- 
cause there is no serious business on hand there; no 
work to do, no desires to curb, nothing but singing, re- 
joicing, and flying about. 

I am perfectly willing, however, to take all the con- 
sequences of believing that there is no such heaven. 
Those who think that there is will simply be disillusioned 
when they die. As sure as there is a heaven, there will 
be serious business on hand for us there. 

@ The fact remains that the God of Jesus and the Jesus 
of God have not found overmuch favor among us on 
earth even since they were nailed to the cross on Calvary. 

When Jesus went away, He left disciples who bore His 
likeness; but most of them were put to death because 
God dwelt in them. 

There are still multitudes among us who praise the 
Christ of history but despise the history-making Christ 
of today. 

Of late, the killing seems to be more frequent, and 
the resistance to God and all good, just above the killing 
line, is tremendous in its pressure and vast in its scope. 

Hence the suffering and sacrifice that God and His 
cooperating sons must still bear in the work of winning 
and transforming the world. 

If in His friendly human approach to the world God 
were never resisted by anyone at any time, how the 


WHY DID JESUS DIE? asc 


burden would be lifted for those who try to teach, do 
business, and manage political affairs in a Christian 
way. 

Of course, the vicious will reject God. That is to be 
expected; but why should so many who bear the name 
Christian still oppose God’s further advent into practical 
human affairs? 

Lip service done a fanciful God at a distance does not 
count in the face of this rejection of the real God when 
He comes to us in the practical affairs of daily life. 

@ Why did Jesus die nineteen hundred years ago? 

For the same reason that the prophets were stoned; 
for the same reason that the true aggressive disciples of 
Jesus today suffer and sometimes die—because men do 
not love the company of God when He comes too near; 
when He does some plain speaking with them in human 
language and human deeds. 

In the early days of the Christian era, it was dangerous 
to be too much like Christ. 

Though conditions are not so bad now, yet one who 
occupies an influential place in the affairs of the world, 
and is wise, will prepare for opposition and possible death, 
if he stands by the will of God as unswervingly as did 
his Master. 

There is still great opposition to God when He tries 
to enter fully into our business, political, and social rela- 
tions. 

Some would like to see God confined to the church 
edifice ; in practice they prefer a Godless world. 


256 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


All disregard of truth and love in human relations is 
a rejection of God. 

Let us hope that we shall give Him more reverence in 
the life to come. He will certainly appreciate the change 
if we do. 


1. Dip JEsus Diz To APPEASE THE MORAL INDIGNATION 
oF Gop? 


@ No. God’s righteous indignation was only increased 
by this additional crime, the greatest crime of the race. 

After its killing of Jesus the world was in greater 
moral arrears than ever before. 

If man’s disobedience in the beginning warranted his 
sentence of eternal punishment, then the crime enacted 
on Calvary called loudly for the intensifying of the tor- 
ment. 

Were a justly condemned prisoner to kill the judge 
who pronounced sentence, while the judge was making 
a friendly call upon him in his cell, that exploit would 
not improve the legal status of the prisoner. 

Instead of wiping out the legal guilt of the race, the 
killing of Jesus did not even reduce but added to it im- 
measurably. 

The committing of a second and worse crime is an 
odd way to go about canceling the punishment due on 
the first. 

If God’s hands were morally tied so that He could 
not help before, were they not doubly tied after the slaying 
of Jesus? 


WHY DID JESUS DIE? 257 


If God’s love had not been the full equal of His in- 
finite righteousness, certainly He would have abandoned 
the race when they crucified Him in His beloved Son. 
@ While no one denies that the act was a crime on the 
part of those who accomplished the death of Jesus, yet 
many believe that it was accepted by God as a fulfill- 
ment of the unsatisfied judgment that rested upon man- 
kind, 

They think that before the death of Jesus, God was 
not morally free to try even, to bring His children to 
repentance; that notwithstanding God’s love was great, 
He could make no attempt to draw men to Himself as 
sons without first slaying His Son Jesus. 

True, they admit that God called men to repentance 
before the crucifixion; but this they think He did only 
because He knew that in due time the crucifixion would 
occur. 

This idea puts God in a position where He could under- 
take nothing on behalf of His rebellious children unless 
they would first murder His best-beloved Son. 

@ Surely no one wishes to minimize the righteousness of 
God; for if He is not faultless there, the world is without 
a foundation. 

But the claim that God could execute a judgment of 
death upon an innocent person would make Him lacking 
in all moral discernment; and that, regardless of how 
divine the victim was, or of how willing he was to be 
executed. 

Regardless of who the executioner was, for God to 


258 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


sanction the death of Jesus at the hands of His enemies 
would be a crime. 

Many a mother would willingly hang at the hands of 
justice to spare her criminal son. But the court that 
would accede to her wish would not only be guilty of a 
failure to execute the law, but of an act grossly immoral. 

Sometimes, among men, the criminal is not brought to 
trial at all, because some one is willing to reimburse the 
plaintiff for his loss or injury. As we say, “the crime 
was hushed up for a consideration.” 

However, in God’s court no one can escape justice. 

How God disposes of criminals, we shall consider later ; 
but here let it be said that the love of God would have 
sought to bring back His sinful children even if Jesus 
had never been put to death. 


2. Dip Jesus Dig As A SUBSTITUTE? 


@ Yes, in the sense that a man drowns as a substitute 
when he loses his life in rescuing another. 

But Jesus was not a substitute in the sense that He 
was executed in man’s stead. 

Sometimes people say, “It is too bad that the innocent 
have to be punished for the guilty.”” When closely ques- 
tioned, however, they admit that they mean nothing more 
than that the innocent must suffer through the wrong- 
doing of the guilty ones. . 

True, some evil-minded persons do punish every mem- 
ber of a family if one of its number goes wrong; but 
God’s justice never so miscarries. 


WHY DID JESUS DIE? 259 


Some contend that Jesus who never experienced the 
sense of guilt in even its mildest forms felt, in a myste- 
rious way, the guilt of the world to be His own; and 
this they believe to be true because they, too, have a simi- 
lar feeling. 

Well may they have such a feeling; they have shared 
in the sin of the world. They have both sinned and led 
others into sin. In comparison with some, their sin may 
be moderate; yet it is real and entails guilt. 

Then again when we see our sin greatly exaggerated 
in the crime of another, we realize that except for ten 
thousand mercies lovingly bestowed upon us, we might 
have committed the same crime. 

We know, too, if others had not done them first and 

made us ashamed and afraid to do them, that we should 
have done some worse things than we have. 
@ That the innocent must suffer with the guilty, and 
that they often suffer in the efforts of their compassion 
to help the guilty, there is no denying; and that this suf- 
fering plays a large part in the transformation of the 
wicked and helps to save them from further sinning with 
its painful consequences there can be no doubt; but black 
and white are not more different than the difference be- 
tween all that and one person assuming the moral guilt 
of another. 

This last simply cannot be done. 

However complex God’s personality may be there are 
not three of Him but one. 

One part or portion of God was not under the moral 


260 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


necessity of crucifying another part of Himself, before 
He could undertake the work of rescuing His children 
from sin and death. 

It is neither necessary nor morally right to whip a 
good son before a father’s offended sense of justice can 
allow him to seek the reformation of a bad son. 

The death of Jesus removed not one whit from the 
guilt of the race, nor did it make it any more right for 
God to exercise His love toward His sinful children. To 
think that it did is to miss the whole point of the sacri- 
ficial element in God’s love. 


3. WITHOUT THE SHEDDING OF INNOCENT BLoop, WAs 
SALVATION PossIBLE? 
@ No. Emphatically no. 

In a world that has been blinded and degraded by 
sin, God can not get near enough to sinful men to reveal 
Himself and save without getting hurt. 

If He is not willing to be hurt, even crucified, then 
He must keep out of human life. 

But except He does enter the lives of men, there is 
no salvation. 

Salvation is the identification of God’s life with the 
life of man; in thought, in affection, and endeavor. 

The Christian idea of religion requires that God shall 
live in man and that man shall live in God. In the 
nature of things they were meant for each other, and 
in no possible way can they get along well apart. 

All religions are true just so far as they adjust them- 


WHY DID JESUS. DIE? 261 


selves to this idea and make it a reality; and all religions, 
all branches of the Christian religion included, insofar as 
they fail in this respect, are false. 

Religion that saves never begins until God dwells in 
some human being. 

But as soon as God does that, joy and sorrow begin 
for Him and the one in whom He dwells; friendships 
and persecutions follow. 

The truth of this statement is not a matter of opinion, 

but rests upon appalling facts of history. 
@ From the beginning of human life until now, every 
mile of the way has been stained ,with the innocent blood 
of those in whom God was permitted to live; and will 
continue to. be until Divine Love in human hearts elimi- 
nates the blind selfishness and cruel hate of mankind. 

As long as God dwells only among the stars, and 
beyond, he will arouse no opposition; but as soon as He 
begins to live in human beings He excites a desire in 
some one to crucify Him. 

Why does not God limit His dwelling place to the 
stars and the forces of nature and keep out of man? 

Because, by so doing, He could neither save His chil- 
dren, nor make His own life worth while. 

Either He must stay apart and lose His children who 
grovel in darkness and sin, or else He must enter their 
lives and take the consequences. 

In the beginning and even now, a very considerable por- 
tion of the human family will first oppose and then kill 
if not left alone in its evil devices. 


262 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Not once, but millions of times God has bled and died 
in His holy children. 

In proportion to their number He has died most fre- 
quently in His greatest children, the prophets. 

That was because He lived in them, of all men, most 
fully, and carried on His saving work most aggressively. 

If God did not find great souls in which to live, there 
could be no prophets; and the degradation and despair 
of a world in which no prophet had ever lived would 
beggar description. 

If the world could not endure God mixing into their 
affairs in the prophets, of course, men could not bear 
to see themselves in the blinding light of God in Jesus. 

In Jesus, the life of God appeared unclouded and un- 
biased among men; in Jesus, God spoke and acted in 
human words and in human deeds. 

Jesus was Emmanuel, God with us. 

@ How did the people of Palestine take the simple, human 
presence of God in Jesus? 

Their blind leaders were staggered by His presence; 
the profiteers, smarting under His words, cried out in 
their rage; the vicious, thwarted in their purpose, roared 
with anger; the worldly-wise and cautious declared that 
He was turning the world upside down. 

Nevertheless, some clave to Him and loved Him. These 
became the nucleus of a new body for Him in which to 
continue His saving journey through the world. On a 
higher plane than the world had ever before known, these 
disciples, nerved to do so by a new sense of this in- 


WHY DID JESUS DIE? 263 


dwelling presence of God, tried to preserve to the end 
of time the portrait of God that Jesus had engraved upon 
their hearts. 

As a consequence of their fidelity to their Master, and 
their God, earth became the scene of more martyr deaths 
in rivers of blood. 

If no one since Jesus had been willing to let God live 
His more abundant life in him, and if necessary die 
for so doing—why, after these nineteen hundred years 
we should not know that there ever had been a Jesus. 
Furthermore, if from this time on no one were to allow 
God to live in him lovingly and aggressively on the firing 
line of human wickedness and on the frontiers of human 
need, then the meaning of Christ’s life would fade into 
a religious superstition and the Church would become 
chaff before the driving winds of selfishness. ! 
@ No more than their Master, should true Christians Be 
fanatics. 

Jesus did not cry aloud in the streets; He did not 
exhibit any of the characteristics of a fanatic; he dis- 
played no red flags; He simply radiated the white light 
of truth, love, and righteousness; He only lived the true 
life of God in human relations; and for this, and no 
other reason, He was put to death. 

It is certain that the loving, aggressive God will con- 
tinue to be persecuted and slain in His loyal sons until 
persecutions and slayings are no more. 

He will not abandon human life because of any pain 
or loss that His presence may bring upon Him and His 


264 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


good sons and daughters as long as any human being 
will permit Him to remain. 

God in man, is the lamb that was slain from the foun- 
dation of the world until now; and He will continue to 
suffer in man until He has won all humanity to Himself. 

The length of our redemptive suffering on earth is but 

a day in comparison with the long ages through which 
God suffers; He lives in and suffers with every genera- 
tion of men that is born into the world. 
@ That God’s at-onement with man in a wicked world 
is won through much suffering and much blood is the 
great lesson that Christians have but very imperfectly 
learned. 

Instead of letting God carry on His redemptive work 
aggressively through them, at any cost the world may 
impose, they are inclined to make a fetish of the blood 
of Jesus and thereby turn the religion of Christ into 
another superstition. 

The cost of redemption in the currency of suffering 
and blood is not less than we have supposed, but infinitely 
more. 

Only the meaning of it all is different, and its magnitude 
vastly greater than we have realized. 

If God is to save the race, He has not yet been cruci- 
fied for the last time. 

In His loving approach to men, Jesus learned to know 
the joys and sorrows of the Father; and while He de- 
lighted in the joys, He refused not the sorrows. 

Like Him, all Christians should be happy in their love 


WHY DID JESUS DIE? 265 


for God and in their love for humanity. They should 
also be happy and grateful because they are loved by 
God and by all true men. They should find comfort in 
all the normal activities of life. 

At the same time, though not seeking suffering for 
suffering’s sake, yet they should not hesitate to go where 
God would have them go, to do what God would have 
them do, to be what God would have them be. 

Neither loss nor pain should cause Christians to break 
faith with God and their fellow-men. 

@ Some professing Christians find life altogether too 
easy; for the easy life knows nothing of Christ’s joy 
and possesses little of His quality. 

Christians who bear no part in the ecteniptine suffering 
of God are not citizens of the Kingdom; they are simply 
“squatters” on some beautiful clearing at the expense of 
true Christians, and there they build their homes, estab- 
lish their business, and live in respectable selfishness. 

And when they have influenced enough others to fol- 
low their example, a serious situation is created that re- 
quires more suffering and more blood for its removal. 

All fresh sin means new crowns of thorns and new 
crosses for the innocent. “If any man would come after 
me, let him take up his cross and follow me.”’ 

A cross that hurts God and Jesus inexpressibly, but 
their followers not at all, is a fetish, a glittering charm, 
a mockery. For the joy that was set before Him, Jesus 
despised the pain and the shame of the cross. 

If easygoing Christians should let God take possession 


266 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


of their lives and their holdings, they would have to 
march against the forces of evil in a way that would 
bring them suffering such as they have never dreamed ; 
and joy of a quality they have never known. 

@ lf we abandon the world, then God will be compelled 
to abandon it also. 

But if we stand by, God will share with us all the 
sorrows and all the crosses that an evil world may im- 
pose upon us. “A servant is not above his lord; if they 
persecuted me, they will persecute you.” 

If Christians could only gain a true insight into the 
cross of Christ, the cross of God, the cross of mankind 
in all the heights and depths of its meaning, they would 
carry it into all highways and byways of business, poli- 
tics, and social life; they would preach it with love, illu- 
mination, and sound ethics; they would drink the cup 
that God drinks, that Jesus drank, and that the martyrs 
drained; and then the patient, but resistless, love of God 
would conquer the world. 

Men would then see the wonderful meaning of life, the 
cruelty of sin, the wisdom and glory of suffering love. 
And the Church, after its splendid conquests, would re- 
turn to sing with boundless joy: 

In the cross of Christ I glory, 

Towering o’er the wrecks of time; 

All the life of sacred story 

Gathers round its head sublime. 
@ The cross is the place where light and darkness meet, 
where love and hate grapple for the supremacy, where 


WHY DID JESUS DIE?. 267 


God and sinners become reconciled. When the cross 
fades from sight, God vanishes. 

We may still commune with our thoughts of Him, but 
God, as a transforming Presence, is gone; gone because 
we have refused to go His way. 


4. WHAT GREAT TRUTHS DID THE OLD ORTHODOXY 
CONSERVE? 


@ The righteousness of God, the sinfulness of man, re- 
demption through suffering; faith, repentance, forgive- 
ness, regeneration; in the old orthodoxy, all these great 
truths were keenly perceived and felt and proclaimed with 
power. 

For those who did this magnificent work in their day 
and generation, we can not be too grateful. Adequate 
though their explanations of these truths were for the 
times in which they lived, they now seem inadequate to 
us and in some respects painful. 

Because we feel compelled to explain some of these 
eternal verities differently, we should not be charged with 
rejecting them. 

@ God must punish the one who sins and not an innocent 
substitute. 

His laws that govern the soul are inexorable; their 
execution can not be deferred to some far-off judgment 
day. 

God can not make good results follow bad deeds. 

All sin immediately injures the one who sins and inci- 
dentally injures innocent ones about him. 


268 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


The moment we sin, our degradation with all its con- 
sequences begins whether we realize it or not: and must 
increase until we experience a change of heart and obey 
God’s laws of love and righteousness. 

Even when we have repented of a sin and been for- 
given, no small part of our punishment continues. 

Though further descent into degradation ceases when 
our hearts are renewed in love, yet much of the injury 
we have done ourselves and others has not yet run its 
full course. 

When our love is restored, new sorrow is felt over 

past sin and its injurious consequences—especially to 
others; injuries that we cannot undo. 
@ A parishioner once said to me, “I wasted my youth in 
wicked living, but God has forgiven me. Never- 
theless, there are many things now that I want to do 
for Him that I can not because I am an ignorant old 
man.” 

While his face brightened and the tears welled in his 
eyes, he said, “There is no doubt that God forgives me, 
but the fact still remains that I am an ignorant old man, 
and the injury done by my early sins to others I can so 
little remedy.” 

Here he was, happy in the love of God and in the 
knowledge of sins forgiven, but still suffering for past 
sins. By no means morbid, he was one of the best men 
I ever knew, and his influence in his limited sphere was 
tremendous. 

@ Some think that if they are punished there is nothing 


WHY DID JESUS DIE? 269 


to be forgiven, or if forgiven, they will escape all pun- 
ishment. Both these ideas are grave mistakes. 

We shall be forgiven if we truly repent, but punished 
shall we be anyway. 

No one felt how true this is more keenly, at times, 
than the great Apostle Paul. He felt that his debt to God 
and man was so great that he could never pay it. 

Pity the Christian who can relate that he was once a 
great sinner with any satisfaction. On the day that he 
becomes a good Christian, the memory of his past sins 
will cut like a knife. 

It does no good to dwell upon these painful memories, 
but however much one may try to avoid them altogether, 
they will return at times and pierce his soul. 

Sin persisted in, in open unrepentance, leads step after 
step down the way of degradation and piles up injury 
on top of injury to ourselves and to society. 

Sin, if allowed to run its course, becomes a festering 
sore, a menace of infection to everybody and to every 
good thing; and sooner or later external suffering is 
brought upon the sinner and the innocent all about him. 
@ The laws of God, the laws of society, and all the phys- 
ical and moral forces of the universe make the sinner 
their target and begin to beat him down. 

He is a rebel and as a rebel he must first be defeated, 
and then won over. 

Sins of passion are most quickly detected, but the 
degradation that comes through the deceitfulness of riches 
and refined forms of selfishness is in the long run just 


270 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


as disastrous; it is like the undermining of a conti- 
nent. 

All sin works direct and immediate injury. 

If an evil thought or deed improved us, or left us un- 
impaired, life itself would be a farce. 

If there is any moral order operative at all in God's 
universe, then His measures for the enforcement of the 
laws of morality must be executed upon the soul as 
promptly and as definitely as the laws of physics upon 
clod and star; and experience proves that they are so 
executed. 

Some will say, “that is all true, but it is only the natural 
consequences of sin.” 

Of course, it is a consequence, and it is natural; the 
execution of God’s laws is the most natural thing in the 
world, as unlike as can be to the artificial enforcement of 
our human legislation by the courts. Jn the day thou 
eatest thereof, thy life is degraded. 

@ Now God finds it so hard and costly to save us, just 
because He can not suspend His laws, can not delay their 
execution, can not punish the innocent for the guilty. 

He has to be righteous every moment, and because 
He is, the violator of law is so greatly injured by his 
sins that he is hard to reach and to save. 

Under the undeviating operation of God’s laws, a per- 
son may develop both good and bad traits side by side; he 
may win reward for the one and punishment for the 
other the same day. 

We all find it so in our own lives; our souls may be 


WHY DID JESUS DIE? . 271 


improving in certain respects and in other ways degener- 
ating. 

in God there is no variableness neither shadow of 
turning in respect to what is exact and right. 

If a sinner makes the slightest move toward God, he 
is just so far improved plus the reciprocal move of God 
toward him. 

And if a Christian deviates in anything from the will 
of God, he is so far degraded plus the reciprocal move 
of God against him. 

God can not favor a sinner by punishing Jesus in his 
stead; that would be a crime. 

Thinking that of course He could and that He did do 
so, was one of the most awful mistakes ever made by 
Christian teachers. 

In so teaching, unintentionally to be sure, but substan- 
tially, nevertheless, they disproved the righteousness of 
God which they had at first so wisely affirmed. 

God never made the mistake of punishing the wrong 
person, nor did He ever fail to punish the right one. 
@ The punishment of sin is blindness, viciousness, and 
general degradation. 

To those who were thus degraded by their sins, Jesus 
could not go with the mind and heart of God without 
getting hurt; and without the human presence of the 
loving, helpful God, they could not be saved. 

Through their sins they had lost God, and because of 
the work of degradation done in them by their sins, they 
despised God when He entered their swine-pens to bring 


Pe WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


them back to His way of thinking and living; their per- 
sistent sinning had made them like swine and unwilling 
to be like their Father. 

Because of their sins they had fallen into a pit many 
fathoms deep; and it cost God something to dig them out. 
Tt cost Him His human life and the life of His son Jesus 
to win their faith, and to transform their character. 

@ In Kansas, some thirty-five years ago, a two-year-old 
child fell into a “bored” well eighty feet in depth. The 
child was so near the size of the well that it slipped 
gradually to the bottom and so escaped immediate death. 

The well was too small for an older person to descend, 
and the child was too young to hold on to a lowered 
rope. The sorrow-stricken parents could not invert the 
well nor reverse gravity. Love could not change, nor 
delay, the execution of any of these laws; but it could 
dig. 

So men dug until they almost fainted, and nearly sweat 
blood, and finally rescued the child before life was gone. 
@ It means exertions on this order to save a world that 
has suffered the punishment of its sins; in fact, it means 
a great deal more. 

The child offered no resistance when they laid hold 
of it to remove it from the well; but many men will fight 
Him when God has reached them. They do not wish to 
be removed from their sins. 

God is not righteous because He punishes Jesus, who 
never fell into a pit, but because He lets sinners suffer 
the consequences of their own wrongdoing and then 


WHY DID JESUS DIE? 273 


helps them out at great cost to Himself if they will 
accept His mercy. He proves His righteousness by pur 
ishing sinners and He proves His love by coming to their 
help regardless of any suffering that they may inflict upon 
Him while He is trying to save them. 

@ We believe that God is fully as righteous as the old 
orthodoxy affirms, and that He is infinitely more right- 
eous than its explanation of how His righteousness 
behaves would indicate. 

We prefer not to explain the great verities of God in 
such a way as to impeach His character and blind men 
to the fact that they must reap. as they have sown. 

The great fact is that God reaches us, and that it costs 
Him pain and death to do so; but the belief that Jesus 
was “executed” for our sins so that we might escape our 
own just punishment has done worlds of harm. It is 
not true. 


5. How, TuHen, Dots THE DEATH oF JESUS AID IN 
Our SALVATION ? 


@ The death of God in Jesus helps to save us, not simply 
because it stirs our emotions, though it does that, but be- 
cause God is there present making His supreme revelation 
of the kind of God He is to men; it helps to save us be- 
cause it is the culminating revelation in a long ascending 
series of revelations. 

It is the nearest, fullest, and completest approach and 
the most heart-breakingly tender invitation to sinful man 
to make friends with Him that God ever gave. 


274 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


No less complete an exposure and revelation is it of 
man and the sin which he harbors in his heart. 

Nowhere else does the love of God appear so bright 
and therefore the sin of man so black as at the cross. 

At the cross, love and sin met prepared to do their 
utmost. 

There, the pure, loving God and sinful, cruel man put 
no limits on their self-exposure; and that is why the 
death plea of the more abundant life of God in Jesus aids 
so in our salvation. 

It is not the blood that saves us, but God at the zenith 
of His revelation in this death hour; the God in Jesus 
who loved us while we were nailing Him to the cross; the 
God in Jesus who loved us while His blood trickled down 
from the wounds that we made in His hands and His 
feet; He, and only He, can save. 

He saves us by the personal influence of His life upon 
ours; He saves us by causing us to believe in Him and 
by quickening us to love Him; by arousing us to hate sin 
and love righteousness ; by enabling us to see that all men 
are made for one another and for God, even as He is 
the friend of all men. 

To save us, God must show us how wise and good He 
is, in contrast with how foolish and selfish we are, and do 
it in a way that we can never forget. 

He must lead us to repentance, give us the assurance 
of His forgiveness, and make us more and more like 
Himself by daily comradeship, by the true friendship 
carried on between Him and His child. 


WHY DID JESUS DIE? 276 


Nothing less is salvation, and nothing but the revealed 
life of God can accomplish it. 

It is not “moral influence’ that saves us but the un- 
dying, persistent, personal power of God. 

@ God has no plan of salvation except to keep after His 
children until He wins them. 

He adopts every possible means of approach, and uses 
every type of influence at His command. 

His seeking to save is a long and dangerous quest; it 
involves many rebuffs and many crucifixions. 

An absentee God could never reveal Himself to us, nor 
win our love and allegiance; and an incarnate, comrade 
God is sure to be much resisted and sometimes crucified ; 
because the race has been blinded and made downright 
cruel by sin, 

@ ‘This is eternal life: to know God and Jesus Christ 
whom He has sent;” only that much of God can be sav- 
ingly known as is incarnate. 

The incarnate God must do something more than stand 
up in the form of a man to be looked at; incarnation to 
that extent alone would be of no value. 

He must enter vitally into human relations; He must 
give and take as a member of society. 

Not until we hear Him teach and see Him react to all 
kinds of treatment in our world do we really know Him. 

Self-revelation is no easy matter—even for us. 

We begin the process of self-exposure in our simple 
pleasures and duties; but when we move into the crises 
of life we stand much more fully revealed. 


276 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


When a man’s relations with others have become inti- 
mate and complex; when he has had to show his colors 
in one phase of life after another; then if he is called on 
to face death because his ideals are opposed by his neigh- 
bors, the stage is all set for his self-exposure to the 
utmost. 

God in Jesus succeeded in making Himself savingly 

known to His immediate disciples before the crisis of 
His death; but there were others to whom He seemed in 
His last days to be only fit to die. 
@ Even the disciples knew Him better and loved Him 
more after His supreme revelation on the cross. They had 
a new appreciation of God, and a new appreciation of 
sin; and were willing to die for Him and His cause if the 
world had not yet had its fill but demanded more inno- 
cent blood. 

In most cases, their lives were so demanded, and they 
surrendered them as a further revelation to men of their 
Father whom Jesus had so fully revealed to them. 

The death of Jesus was the climax in a series of revela- 
tions made through the three years of His ministry among 
men. 

God made His supreme revelation when, for love’s sake, 
the more abundant life of God in Jesus submitted to 
death at the hands of His enemies. 

This final mad act stripped all masks from off selfish 
hearts. 

It laid bare, also the heart of God; it showed the 
depth possible to human depravity, it put into our hands 


WHY DID JESUS DIE? 277 


the key to the mystery of pure, self-sacrificing love 
through ages past, present, and to come; it illuminated 
Calvary and made it a mount that is destined to illumi- 
nate the world. 

At the time of the Crucifixion many did not see any 
meaning remotely like this in it, but some few did. 

Those who did see had the clew to the world’s redemp- 
tion and it made them willing to enter into a league with 
God to let Him carry on His work through them; it made 
them willing to die like their Master that God’s saving 
light and love might come in contact with those who 
despised them and Him. “The blood of the martyrs was 
the seed of the Church.” 

@ Many of the early Christians shed their blood and 
passed through fire to show the throne and court at Rome 
what the saving love of God was like. 

Like their Master they fought a losing battle until they 
won out by being faithful unto death. 

Wherever the incandescent light that flashed and scin- 
tillated on Calvary goes out, the Kingdom of God lan- 
guishes and disintegrates. 

Jesus did not bear our cross; He bore his own in order 
that it might induce us to see and be willing to bear 
ours. 

When the time comes that Christianity is stripped of 
paganism and the bloody rites that are supposed to 
appease God; when it grasps the true and universal sig- 
nificance of the cross; when for the love of God and 
men it is willing to bear the cross in every human rela- 


278 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


tion; then and only then will Christianity conquer the 
world. 

Jesus, I my cross have taken, 

All to leave and follow Thee. 
@ This is beautiful to sing, but it is much more beautiful 
to do. 

Only then do we know how the love of God can rejuve- 
nate, re-create, and transform. 

Where our freely accepted cross is, there our love is. 

Those Christians who live dull, gray, tiresome lives 
should march with Christ if they want what they say 
they are languishing to have, something thrilling and up- 
lifting. 

@ 1am not contending that all Christians must die or 
lose their property or suffer some other great distress if 
they follow their Master. 

Things were nothing like as bad as that even in the 
first century. They are much better now after all these 
years of enlightenment. | 

Today, a majority can sometimes be found which is 
not opposed but on the side of the man: who will not 
break faith with God. 

Yet there will still be not a little hostility and discom- 
fort for those who follow their Master faithfully even 
in our most Christian communities; and for those who 
push on militantly into the jungles of greed, there must 
still be stiff persecution and many premature deaths. 
@It does seem too bad that there have to be so 
many crosses for those who are simply trying to bring 


WHY DID JESUS DIE? 279 


the people to God, to truth, and to the love of one 
another. 

But if selfish people will have it so, then there is no 
other way for the Father, incarnate in these loving sons 
and daughters, but to bear the cross. 

Only let Christian teachers be careful that their teach- 
ing is clear and sound and ample; that they are making 
an intelligent appeal to the mind and conscience of our 
generation; and that they are not dealing in mere plati- 
tudes. 

If we so live Christ and so preach Christ that men 


can see Him as He is, He will draw all men unto 
Himself. 


CHAPTER XI 
WHY DO WE PRAY? 


Does prayer change God’s will? 

What is acceptable prayer? 

Is the reflex influence of prayer its chief 
value? 

Does God pray? 

How can we make God seem real when we 
pray? | 


@ We talk to our friends for the purpose of letting them 
know our thoughts, share our feelings, and grant if they 
are so disposed our wishes. 

Our words never inform God, however, in any of these 
ways. He knows all our thoughts, all our desires, all 
our needs before we express them. 

If an earthly parent knows that his child is in need 
of anything, he will supply it if he can without the 
child’s asking; perhaps all the more willingly because he 
does not greedily ask for, or even know, what he needs. 

There are, however, many blessings that can not be 
received unless they are known and sincerely desired. 

Will our Heavenly Father, think you, do less for His 
children than we willingly do for ours? 

280 


WHY DO WE PRAY? 281 


q A little boy was told to ask God to take care of him 
first through the night and then go to sleep. After re- 
fusing to do so, he was asked for the reason. 

“Oh, well,’ he said, “God will take care of me any- 
way whether I ask Him to or not.” 

His mother could not deny the truth of that state- 
ment. She knew that a healthy boy was very likely to 
be well in the morning even if he did not pray at night. 

She decided that it was not right to tell a lie to get 
the child to pray. So she said, “If God is good enough 
to take care of me whether I ask Him to or not, I think 
I should be good enough to thank Him for it.” 

This satisfied the little fellow, and he immediately 
thanked the Lord for His loving care. For the next 
few months he did not call his devotion praying, but 
thanking the Lord. 

Though there are many more things to be said about 

prayer, yet they had better not be said than that we 
should forget the thought of this child. 
@ The Psalms usually ring the changes on this same idea. 
I have been astonished over and over again in looking 
through them to see how largely they are addressed to 
God, and how uniformly they express adoration or give 
thanks for His unsolicited kindness. 

The authors of the Psalms express their whole soul 
and show that they are doing it with the deepest con- 
sciousness that God is their principal hearer. 

They seem unable to discourse long on any theme with- 
out addressing their words directly to the Lord. 


282 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Whether they speak of their sins, their hopes, their 
love, their aspirations, or their achievements, it is with 
a sense of gratitude to God. 

They do not ask God to forgive their sins as often as 
they confess that He is more willing to forgive than they 
are to repent. 

Whatever they talk over with the Lord they usually 

do it in this most admirable way. 
@ After spending an hour with these worshipful souls, 
pondering upon the matter and the manner of their way 
of communing with God, the change experienced in turn- 
ing to read many of our Christian prayers with the same 
close study is like a cold plunge into icy water. 

The majority of our written prayers should be revised 
or, better still, thrown away. 

Eliminate the objectionable from them, and there is 
not enough left to form the nucleus of a worthy prayer. 

It can truthfully be said of some of our prayers that 
nothing finer has ever been written. 

Likewise, this same criticism and this same eulogy can 
be truthfully said over many of our prayers that are not 
written. 

Many of both kinds help me, and many of them tram- 
ple on my faith, irritate my thoughts, and chill my 
love. 

Well might we repeat the request of the disciples, 
“Lord, teach us to pray?” We are always speaking about 
the simple gospel and simple prayers, and yet, no matter 
how simply one preaches or prays, his own underlying 


WHY DO WE PRAY? 283 


ideas will crop out. And if they are not sound as often 
happens, they are offensive. 


1. Dors PRAYER CHANGE Gop’s WILL? 
@ As we have said, our prayers convey no new informa- 
tion to the Lord, neither do they make Him any more 
kind, or willing to help us. 

God desires our good whether we pray or not, beyond 
all that we can understand or wish. 

Nothing we can do ever changes Him either from 
the right or to the right because His will always sides 
with the very best thing to do under the existing circum- 
stances. 

The right thing to do for a child, however, depends 
upon the conduct and mental attitude of the child. 

In goodness, God is the changeless Father, we are the 
vacillating children. 7 

God’s constant good will compels him to suit His ac- 
tions to our variations. As certain, therefore, as God 
is good and wise, we determine His specific acts toward 
us by our conduct in each new situation. 

In a deep sense every life, good or bad, is a prayer; 
it has many surface desires, but underneath them all is the 
great organizing and controlling desire. 

This deepest desire expressed in deeds if not in words 
is the soul’s real prayer. 

With this deepest desire, the real prayer that we are 
praying, our spoken petitions may not be at all in har- 
mony. 


284 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


Prayer is not Christian until every desire of the heart 
is brought before God for His approval or disapproval, 
His condemnation or benediction. 

Our Father regards our deepest desire and disregards 
the vagrant wishes and petitions that we present to Him. 

It is when the soul stands before its Maker making a 
solemn engagement to surrender every desire to His 
will, that it is blessed beyond its heart’s desire whether 
the particular request of the moment is granted or denied. 
@ Prayer on this basis opens to God a chance to do for 
us that which He never could do if we did not come to 
Him with the honest surrender of our whole hearts. 

Nothing could be more stupid and wrong than for 
God to treat us in the same way regardless of the real 
attitude of our lives toward Him, our own highest good, 
and that of our fellow-men. 

Yet someone is always telling me that “‘we’’ cannot 
influence the actions of God. 

As if God were so automatically fixed that He must 
treat a man just the same whether the man is dispensing 
charity or robbing the people; whether he is a wise man 
or a fool; whether a saint or a sinner. 

Those who coax and plead, as if they were trying to 
persuade God against His will, may be largely responsible 
for the idea that God is not influenced by prayer. 

Such coaxing and pleading as we sometimes hear is a 
pitiful, not to say, a dreadful thing. 

Jesus rebuked it by saying, “Your Father knoweth 
that ye have need of these things before ye ask Him.” 


WHY DO WE PRAY? 285 


And, “Your Father is more willing to give good gifts 
to His children than men are to give good gifts to their 
children.”’ 

@ This is not meant to imply that we should never go 
before God in agony of spirit. 

There are times and circumstances that allow us no 
choice, if we are to pray at all, but to take souls of 
anguish to God in prayer. 

If ever it is right to come before God, surely it is 
right to come when we are in great distress. 

But there is a proper way of agonizing in His presence. 

At such times it is very proper to ask, Is there any 
other way, Father? Have I overlooked anything that I 
could do to avert this impending calamity? Have I fallen 
short in anything that I could do or be? If not, if this 
is Thy will, then let it be even so; but give me strength. 

So prayed our Master in the agony of the Garden, but 
He never dashed any cup from His lips that His Father 
wished Him to drink; nor did He ever fail to receive 
the strength necessary for these ordeals. 

Such prayer has saved the day for many of us in many 

a crisis; and. whatever the issue, the net result of our 
prayer has greatly blessed us and the world. 
@ Our prayers can not make God any more kind and 
willing, but they may make us more willing to be led 
and thus enable Him to do for us and with us that which 
He could not do if we did not pray. 

In this sense, and only in this sense, can our prayers 
change God’s will and actions. 


286 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


The prayers of the Apostle Paul lifted him above his 
selfishness and self-assertiveness and enabled God to do 
many things in him and through him which He never 
could have done without Paul’s great surrender. 

If he had not prayed, God could not have used him 
to reach the world through his great missionary tours; 
and, in that event, it is hard to see how the Christian 
Church would ever have got its world start. 


2. WHat Is ACCEPTABLE PRAYER? 


@ It is the honest give and take between two comrades; 
the complete exchange of lives through fellowship; sin- 
cere conversation with God. 

It is keeping step with God as we journey along and 
talking to Him by the way. 

When one selfishly or cravenly remains silent on any 
guilty thought or motive, in his conversation with God, 
he ceases to pray, no matter how many prayers he may 
recite. 

Prayer, therefore, is the greatest act of the soul. 

One may think, or talk, or work with a more or less 
dormant conscience; but in true prayer, conscience, mind, 
and will must be acutely alive. 

Prayer exposes the entire life to the searching eyes of 
God; it makes us see how our lives look through God’s 
eyes, 

It is astonishing how keen our moral sense becomes 
when we say, “How does this thing in my life appear 
to you, dear Father?” 


WHY DO WE PRAY? 287 


The first question to ask ourselves when we are about 
to pray should be, Am I going to be honest? 

If we thus bare our hearts to God, we pray whether 
we use our lips or not. 

Two people equally given to sincere prayer, will not 
be equally inclined to express it in audible words, yet it 
would be very strange to find anyone, whose heart com- 
muned much with God, who never cared to express him- 
self to God in spoken words. 

@ Must acceptable prayer be offered in Jesus’ name and 
for Jesus’ sake? 

No Christian worthy of the name has the least dispo- 
sition to deny Jesus one iota of His due. 

He is glad to acknowledge that but for the light and 
influence of Christ’s life, he would not know so well 
how to pray; nor have such a strong desire to pray. 

He gives great thanks for the help that comes through 
the human approach of God to him in Jesus. As Chris- 
tians, we all come to the God who bears the name Jesus 
and Emmanuel. 

But to think that God will not answer our Christ- 
taught prayers unless Jesus intercedes for us, as an ad- 
vocate before a\ judge, is almost blasphemous. 

If God had not aggressively sought us in Jesus, He 
would not receive us because of anything that Jesus might 
say on our behalf. 

When a person comes to God in all sincerity, he is 
loved and accepted before Jesus has time to say a word 
in his favor. 


288 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


It is highly desirable that a Christian should remember 
how much it has cost the Father and our Elder Brother 
to reach him and to save him from his blindness and 
selfishness ; and it is equally good that a Christian express 
his gratitude that God was not driven away by all the 
unmerited suffering that his stubbornness and the stub- 
bornness of the race have caused Him. 

@ Is faith necessary to acceptable prayer? 

Certainly. We must believe that God is on the 
“square” with us or else there is no sense in praying or 
having anything to do with Him. 

I should never pray to a God of whom I was sus- 
picious. 

Never once in my life have I had the slightest doubt 
concerning the goodness and fairness of God. 

I have, sad to say, doubted His existence, but never 
His character if He existed. 

To satisfy my mind that God existed, required a long 
and hard struggle. Of this I have written in my book, 
“What and Where Is God?” 

With this question settled, I can no more doubt His 
dependableness than I can doubt that two and two are 
four. 

I have no capacity to understand anyone who believes 
in God but questions His goodness, or fairness, or re- 
liability. 

@ Must we believe that God will grant the particular 
thing for which we pray? 

If I am praying for the forgiveness of my sins, I 


WHY DO WE PRAY? 289 


have absolute confidence that He will forgive me if I 
repent and, by His help, stop sinning; and equally confi- 
dent of His presence and help. 

In regard to other things, I am never certain. 

My assurance goes only this far: that He will 
grant my particular request if His wisdom approves; 
and if He cannot, it is preferable for me that He should 
not. 

_ The desired outcome for anything that rests heavily 
on my mind, I must consider with Him long and care- 
fully; and frequently it comes to pass for me because 
I do. 

Regardless, however, of after results, I must take all 
my deepest concerns to Him because I need light and 
help where my burden is heaviest and my interest is 
deepest. . 

When I go to God with my whole heart, light and 
help always come even if my desire cannot be fulfilled. 

It is not true that if one has great faith he can get 
anything. 

If it were, only one person would need to have 
such faith; he could believe that God would inspire all 
others to believe also, and they would. 

Nothing of that sort has happened; though Jesus 
wished all men to believe in God, and His faith was as 
perfect as faith could be. 

There were many things that His faith, even, could not 
secure, , 

There are many things that God can not do. 


290 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


@ There are three distinct types of prayer that I have 
long observed. 

These I will illustrate by a parable: A father had three 
sons. The first came and said, “Father, will you give 
me a responsihle position in your business ?”’ 

The father said, ““Not now, my son, it is impossible.” 

Now the son did not much expect that his request 
would be granted, and was not certain that he cared 
to bear the responsibility involved in filling the position. 
So he went his way for that time and came to his father 
less and less frequently thereafter because he had smaller 
expectations of a favorable reply. 

Then came the second son to his father and said, 
“Father, will you make me the purchasing agent in your 
firm?” 

The father, knowing that the indolent and careless dis- 
position of his son unfitted him for the place, informed 
him that it would be impossible to grant his request. 

This son did not go away like the former, but idled 
about, living on his father’s bounty, and continued to an- 
noy his father by teasing for favors that he could not 
grant. He was not only a discredit to his father, but he 
did all he could to make himself a burden and a nuisance 
to him all his life. 

@ Finally the third son came with his request for himself, 
which was also refused. Unlike his brothers he neither 
went away, nor teased for what he could not have. He 
said, “Father, I do not want anything that your wisdom 
and love cannot grant; but this matter is of such great 


WHY DO WE PRAY? 291 


importance in my judgment to me that I should like to 
talk it over with you to see if something can not be done; 
perhaps a way may be found by which I can meet the con- 
ditions that would make it right for me to have my 
chance.”’ 

Now the father was greatly pleased to have such a son; 
a son that was willing to be trained to adjust himself to 
all the facts in the case. So they conversed together fre- 
quently and confidentially ; they entered deeply into each 
other’s plans and purposes; they became bosom com- 
panions. 

@ Now it so happened that their frequent spells of com- 
munion not only gave them both much pleasure, but the 
son began to see the whole matter in a new light and to 
govern himself accordingly, so that in an incredibly short 
time the father was happy to grant his son’s request. 
Passers-by then saw a new sign over the front door which 
read: A. B. Mansell & Son. 

@ His petition and the way that the first son acted about 
it represents a type of prayer that is all too common. It 
is a wretchedly poor type, and usually ends by prayer 
losing its hold on the man altogether. 

It is not really prayer at all; but a cheap gamble in 
foolish, selfish requests. 

The second son represents another type of prayer that 
is not as uncommon as some may suppose. Hosts of 
people rarely pray except to coax and tease God for 
something. 

Such persons grow more selfish the longer they pray. 


292 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


They are religious spongers and dead-beats. They are 
always wanting something that they are not fit to receive, 
and have little use for God except when He makes them 
happy for another hour or two, or gives them some new 
goody. 

Those who pray thus do sometimes work themselves 
up into a psychic auto-intoxication in which they imagine 
that God has blessed them; but when their emotional 
spree is past, their false ecstasy goes and leaves them 
either despondent or ready for a new venture in sin. 

These are they who neither learn God’s mind nor ad- 
vance His Kingdom in the world. 

@ The third son represents true prayer. He got what 
he wanted because he went after it in the right way. 

If his request had never been granted, nevertheless, 
both he and his father would have been satisfied and 
blessed in the end by working out the problem it raised 
together. 

Even if the son had not been prepared for what he 
wanted by his talks with his father, those talks would 
have better fitted him for something else; and something, 
perhaps of more value at that. 

Fortunate is he who has learned to pray in a way 
that is right and pleasing to God. 

Many times this parable has been literally fulfilled in 
human homes: One son is a rover, another a sponger, 
while one is a bosom friend and business partner of his 
father. 

Likewise, this parable is literally fulfilled many times 


WHY DO WE PRAY? 293 


in God’s family. Some of His sons are wanderers, some 
are spongers, and many are the others who are with 
Him in business. If we think of Africa, two names, God 
and Livingstone, are before the mind’s eye. If of Amer- 
ica, God and Washington. In Palestine, it was God and 
Jesus. And so on indefinitely, it has been, through all 
our wonderful human history. 

All the great institutions, the world over, bear the 
names of God and His noble sons and daughters who 
have communed with Him and worked with Him. 
“Prayer can accomplish more things than we have ever 
dreamed of.” 


3. Is tHe REFLEX INFLUENCE OF PRAYER ITS 
CHIEF VALUE? 


On the contrary, it is the smallest part of its value. 

The benefit of expressing ourselves to Him would not 
amount to much if God did not give us something big 
to express. 

An empty soul has little to say that is worth saying. 

A deep desire to pray acts as a magnet to draw the 
great thoughts of God to our innermost consciousness. 

In honest, heartfelt prayer, God takes a part in the 
process as well as in the reply. 

Sometimes it is said that prayer does not move God, 
that it only moves the one who prays; that a man does 
not pull the wharf to his boat, but his boat to the wharf. 
God is not a wharf, but a kind friend on the wharf. 

Once we really show Him that we want to land He 


294 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


pulls harder than we do. He throws out the line to us 
and, if we hold fast, does His full share of the pulling 
that gets us to shore. 

When a person consciously faces God in a resolve to be 
absolutely honest with God and himself, it is remarkable 
what unprecedented things happen. 

It is wonder-working to face God without even trying 
to formulate a prayer; to stand with His conscious gaze 
for a few moments upon your soul. 

If one does that for even a brief time, his soul will 
involuntarily say something to God; and what it says 
will almost certainly be the proper thing. 

What it says will be prayer indeed. 

@ I can easily think of a person working himself up into 
a feverish state by the mere friction of his own impor- 
tunities to God, but that is something very different from 
letting God look into your soul until the dead silence is 
broken by the soul’s sudden live cry to God. That is let- 
ting Him help us to pray. 

If God has no part in our prayers, we do not pray; 
we simply rattle on with no great profit to ourselves and 
little pleasure to Him. 

I do believe that the pulpit is remiss in not teaching 
the people more about prayer. 

That the average person but very poorly knows how 
to pray is evident. Though some stumble upon the 
truth about it, how much better it would be if all were 
wisely guided. 

Many of us ministers do not know how to pray as we 


WHY DO WE PRAY? 295 


should, and clearly reveal that fact, every time we under- 
take to lead our congregations in devotion. I believe we 
would all agree that here is where we need much ton- 
ing up. : 

@ If prayer meant no more than the working of our- 
selves up to our best frame of mind, it would still be 
worth the effort ; but since this tuning up of the soul turns 
it into a receiving station for personal messages from the 
mind and heart of God, its value becomes incalculable. 

True prayer seeks admittance into the company of 
God first of all as the supreme privilege, well knowing 
that in the very possession of God Himself all other 
things necessary will be cared for. 

It is a sad sight to see one seeking temporal gifts from 
God at long range before He is willing to extend the hos- 
pitality of a contrite heart to God Himself. 

We may always get what we want—if what we want 
is God. 

And nothing else that we may desire is to be compared 
with that for complete satisfaction. 

It is one thing to show off your gifts of speech in the 
presence of a friend, but quite another and better thing 
to use them to learn the mind and win the love of the 
one with whom you converse. 

Compare for a moment the reflex benefits of your 
prayer with the benefits of the incoming light and urge 
of God in your soul. If one becomes aware of the 
thoughts of God, instantly they become his own thoughts ; 
if he comes to realize the love of God, immediately it 


206 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


becomes the love of his own heart; if God reveals in 
anything His plan and purpose, at once that plan and 
purpose become his own. So great is the value of prayer! 

If prayer does not secure these things, then prayer is 

impossible for the intelligent; it becomes but a relic of 
superstition. 
@ If a person through prayer lives in God and lets God 
live in him, if he talks to God about everything that 
seriously affects them both, if he communes with him as 
a true friend (and not as some great Moloch who wants ° 
fire and human sacrifice) then through his prayer he is 
supremely blessed. 

The Christian is living below his privileges who has 
not so learned to pray; to consider all his wants before 
God; to abide in the light and love of the Father until 
they are granted or until it is apparent that they should 
not be granted. 

Paul prayed three times that his infirmity might be 
removed ; but when God revealed to him that his strength 
should be ‘made perfect in weakness” he accepted it 
and made it a reason for rejoicing. 

When one takes a great affliction, as many Christians 
besides Paul have done, and surmounts it with the ease 
apparently of the eagle above the mountain crag, then he 
is peculiarly blessed as a reward, and his victory and re- 
ward astonish and bless the world. 

Florence Nightingale, afflicted in body, rose above her 
affliction to God and to the love of suffering humanity. 
She brought back a wave of light from God that caused 


WHY DO WE PRAY? 297 


men to fill the earth with kindly hospitals. To keep up 
her devotion to the sick she got something from Him that 
she could pour out upon the world. 

God is the source of all blessings, spiritual and tem- 
poral, and prayer is the open road to God and whatever 
bounties His love sees fit to bestow. 

Our Father will do the best He can for us even if we 
turn our backs upon Him; but He can do much more 
in every way for us if we face Him. 

Some will say, “Of course all that must be true if 
there is a God, but I am not certain that there is any.” 
Well, if there is no God, may God have mercy on us. 


4. Dors Gop Pray? 


@ Yes. He prays more than all the rest of us put to- 
gether. 

He is forever beseeching us. He knocks in warning or 
approbation at the door of conscience; speaks to us in 
the pleas of parents, teachers, books and in nature; calls 
to us to listen to Him in wind and wave; whispers a 
greeting to us in the rustling leaves and blooming flowers; 
bends over us assuringly in His rainbow arch, and drops 
refreshment upon us in His showers. 

He speaks in lightning flash and thunder crash, re- 
minding us of His infinite power; startles us by earth- 
quake and cyclone to shake us out of the thought of our 
self-sufficiency; smiles upon us in waves of prosperity 
and frowns through the billows of widespread poverty 
and depression. He makes His appeal through tranquil 


298 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


homes and peaceful hamlets, and thunders in riots, in all 
lawlessness, and in the crash of falling empires. He 
warns us by the moral wreckage of human lives that fall 
by the way. 

He stands with outstretched arms ever repeating, 
“Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and 
I will give you rest.” 

@ Yes, God prays, He implores, and when we are willing 
He communes. 

Though he can not recognize us as His equals, yet He 
can and does most generously reverence us as sons. We 
pray as children. He prays as the Great Father. 

Formerly, I was greatly concerned as to whether God 
would answer my prayers. 

Now, my whole concern is as to whether I will answer 
His prayers; for He cannot answer mine unless His are 
answered by me. 

If I go His way, He must go my way. 

Together we may travel over many beautiful and use- 
ful roads that neither of us could travel alone. 

God and His child need one another. “Come with Me 
and I will do thee good,” is the silent voice of God that 
ever falls upon my inner ear as gently as the autumn 
leaves fall upon the ground. 

It must be the Father’s voice, for it is like no other. 
It is silent as gravity, illuminating as the sun, sweet 
as the fragrance of flowers, refreshing as rain, strength- 
ening as food, comforting as a mother’s love. It is the 
Father’s gentle, patient voice in supplication to me. 


WHY DO WE PRAY? 299 


What shall I do with God’s prayer? 

Answer, “Yes, Father, I come’? Or close my ears and 
harden my heart? 

@ Once I prayed, my will be done; and felt grieved if 
it were not. 

Now I pray that my will may be done if it is His 
will. 

If my will is not done I know who, if anybody, is to 
blame. 

Moreover, when the Christian’s will and God’s will 
are identical, their conjoint prayers are not always an- 
swered. 

Sometimes, yes often, they fail because those to whom 
they are addressed turn a deaf ear. 

The saddest and most appalling thing I know is 
for the Lord of all being to bend in supplication before 
one of His children and have His request flatly re- 
fused. 

And this is done every day and by many who are not 
unbelievers, for they acknowledge that God has begged 
them to do something for Him and that they have turned 
Him down. 

No thought has ever come to me that has sobered and 
steadied me more; or that has hushed me into a deeper 
silence before God than this: Am I willing to answer 
God’s prayers? Am I willing to do what He asks me to 
do, and to be what He would help me to be? 

Is there any use of my praying to Him if He cannot 
successfully pray to me? 


300 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


It is easy to believe that if I answer His prayer, He 
will answer mine. 

How could I better fulfill all the conditions necessary 
for the answering of my own prayers than to answer 
God’s prayers to me whole-heartedly? 

@ Sometimes I do not know what God wishes me to do; 
yet ninety-nine times out of a hundred it is perfectly 
plain. 

What God wishes of any of us is for the most part 
very simple. 

For example: when I get awake in the morning, He 
wishes me to recognize Him with love and gratitude. 
This I do hundreds of mornings in these words: 

Come my soul, thou must be waking, 

Now is breaking 

O’er the earth another day. 

Come to Him who made this splendor, 

See thou render 

All thy feeble strength can pay. 
@ When I do this or something like it, on first waking, 
I am perfectly certain that I have done that which is 
pleasing to Him and profitable to me. 

What next does He wish? 

If it is time for me to get up, that is what He wants 
me to do. Did you ever try getting out of bed to please 
God? It is delightful! 

Then what does God want us to do? 

Sometimes feeling rather lazy or hurried I have been 
tempted to neglect my morning bath; but remembering 
that God would have me take it, I have proceeded to do 


WHY DO WE PRAY? 301 


it and it has been followed by a spiritual blessing almost 
as great as when I was baptized. 

In most things His will is very plain. - 

Unless there is some valid reason why I should not, 
He wants me to be at breakfast on time. He wishes 
me to say grace and to be grateful for all His kindness. 
He wishes me to eat my breakfast like a Christian gen- 
tleman, and not as an old grouch who makes the entire 
family miserable. 

So I might go on through the entire day and point 

out what every one knows to be the will of God when 
He thinks of it. 
@ I find many people who always seem to be undergoing 
religious pains because they cannot discover God’s will. 
At one time I was a little like that myself; but some 
years ago it popped into my mind, Why, I nearly always 
know God’s will. Why seek God’s will when I know 
it? 

Take your stand in His will and walk in it. That is 
to have constant fellowship with God. Your journey to 
office or store becomes a walk with your Heavenly 
Father and the atmosphere that you use to do it with 
becomes “The clear, dear breath of God who loveth us.”’ 
@ Now those who cheerfully take their stand in God’s 
will, that they know so well, are the most likely people 
in the world to find out to their complete satisfaction 
what His will is in any more difficult and baffling prob- 
lem that only now and then arises. 

@ There now comes to my mind one of the greatest 


302 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


problems that I ever had to meet. It rested so heavily 
on my heart that I lay awake with it before God until 
four o'clock in the morning. 

‘Though burdened in spirit, I did not plead and fret. 

Having already canvassed the subject to the last degree 
possible, I weighed the pros and cons over and over 
again, but the scales would not tip. 

Again and again I examined my preference in the 
matter to see if it were selfish. At last I could truth- 
fully say that I wanted nothing but God’s wisdom to 
determine the decision. 

That I was not competent to decide the question I fully 
realized, and frankly told the Lord that there was noth- 
ing now to depend upon but the impulse that He might 
awaken in my soul. The case was rested. 

After some time of waiting, the desired conviction to 
act came, and that settled it. 

Now several years after, I can clearly see that if I had 
decided differently, it would have been the greatest mis- 
take of my life; also that even if I had chanced to make 
the same decision without prayer, my decision would 
probably have been a fatal one. 

The struggle in prayer made the decision a holy mat- 
ter, and it made me holier to meet the strain which the 
decision involved. 


5. How Can WeE MAKE Gop SEEM REAL 
WHEN WE Pray? 


Q Naturally, I can answer this question only for myself. 


WHY DO WE PRAY? 303 


Every one who prays must have some idea of God as 
an object or being to whom he comes when he prays. 

His ideas in regard to God in the course of time may 
change, and the change may be to the great advantage 
of the worshiper, but for the time being he must pray to 
God in the likeness that he has formed of Him; unless 
he prays, as we sometimes unfortunately do, without 
thinking of God at all. 

I have been much mortified at times by realizing that 
I had “repeated” the Lord’s Prayer without even think- 
ing of God. 

A minister may say over his sermon in the study with- 
out having any one in his mind to whom he is saying it. 

Sometimes I hear sermons from the pulpit that do not 
seem to be addressed to any one. 

So far as I can detect, they are only memory exercises ; 
sometimes, worse than that, they are a painful effort to 
think of something definite to say that should have been 
thought of before coming to the pulpit. Such prayers 
and such sermons would better be omitted. 

@ As I have grown older my first act in prayer, private 
or public, is to turn consciously to God, to look at Him 
with my whole soul; to open my heart to His holy gaze. 

It is better to do this without a word being said than 
to speak the most fitting words without realizing His 
presence. 

Prayer is hardly real unless we are as conscious of 
God as we are of what we are saying. Just as preaching 
is not preaching unless the minister is as conscious of 


304 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


his people as he is of his sermon; conscious that he is 
trying to speak to the very heart of them. 

Therefore in real prayer, we endeavor to come face 
to face with Him to whom we pray. This is a most help- 
ful thing to do even if we think of nothing to say. Yet 
if one remains for awhile with his whole heart open to 
God, it is morally certain that confessions will be made 
and that words of adoration will be spoken. 

@ Last summer during three weeks of my vacation in 
the country, I walked three-quarters of a mile to the 
post office every night after dark. 

On most of those evenings I resolved to keep conscious 
company with God throughout the entire journey. I told 
the Lord that I would endeavor to let nothing take from 
me the sense of His presence. 

Yes, I said many things to Him during those evening 
walks; yet what I said was purely incidental, even if it 
did prove to be unusually vital. 

As I thought of my unseen soul making my feet move, 
so I thought of His unseen soul making the whirling 
atoms associate together in all the objects about me; in 
the trees, in the great ledges of rock by the way, in the 
road under my feet, in the water of the ocean that was 
half veiled by the night; I thought of how He was direct- 
ing electrons and atoms and molecules to paint the eve- 
ning glow of the western sky. 

Every once in a while I said something to Him 
about what He was doing, and told Him how I adored 
Him. 

Then I thought of how lovely He made human faces, 


WHY DO WE PRAY? 308 


how kindly human hands were, how melodious human 
voices. 

As my memory recalled faces that I had. seen all aglow 
with His truth and love, my Companion of the way be- 
came intensely human. 

I could feel His touch in the hands of my mother as 
she buried my hand in hers while I said my evening 
prayers as a child. 

Naturally my mind recalled the face of Jesus, the por- 
traits of Him by the artists, the descriptions of Him in 
the Gospels, the words that fell from His lips; and in 
the course of it all, my Companion, The World Builder, 
became like Jesus. 

The One who was working all about me, above me, 
and within me had once smiled through the face and 
spoken through the lips of Him whom I delight to call 
Teacher and Master. 

I realized that whenever God was granted the use of 
human lips, He spoke like Jesus and loved like Him. 

Holding the image of that face before my mind as the 
best expression of God, I recited a hymn that I had writ- 
ten. I said those words to Him, two or three times over, 
trying to see each time if I might make them a little 
more real and direct: 


» O' Christ, I come to Thee 
Thy heart of God to see, 
My own dear Lord! 
That I may ever be 
In all things more like Thee, 
From ev’ry sin set free, 
Speak Thou the word. 


306 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


When I behold Thy face, 

My ‘heart then feels God’s grace, 
My truest friend! 

Since Thou art all to me, 
Myself I give to Thee 

With all that I can be; 

Years without end. 


Yes, closer still I come, 
For in Thy heart is room, 
Thou blessed Son! 

Now I may live in Thee 
As Thou dost dwell in me; 
Since by Thy light I see 
That we are one. 


Still may our spirits blend 
To make me truest friend 
Of all mankind. 

Then I shall love God’s will 
And His deep joy fulfill, 
Removing human ill 

With Christlike mind. 


@ As I walked that country road, I could feel that God 
was laying the path for my feet, painting the evening 
sky for my eyes, and making the stars twinkle above me 
as He had smiled through the face of Jesus. 

God was expressing Himself in everything from elec- 
trons to human faces. He became as real as the universe 
that enfolded me. And the universe was real and lovely 
because He willed the universe and its beauty. 

Though everything about this walk was very natural 
and simple, yet it was inexpressibly grand. I had given 


WHY DO WE PRAY? 307 


Him my attention long enough for Him to make Himself 
very dear to me and to photograph His image on my 
soul, 

Then I spoke to Him of my life, of my sins, great and 
small, and I felt the wounds in my soul. Howbeit, 
though the scars were there to give me warning and to 
make me ashamed, yet the wounds were healed. 

Then I thanked God with my whole heart, and told 
Him that I should like to walk to the post office with 
Him the next night. 

@ As for myself, I am too careless, I do not live the life 
I should, yet I know how to make God real. 

And when I am wise enough to walk with Him over 
harder roads than that to the post office; and good enough 
to walk with Him in pleasure, in business, and in the 
valley of death, then He will be “closer to me than 
breathing and nearer than hands and feet.” 


CHAPTER XdI 
FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE? 


Is the “pursuit of happiness” the true aim of 
life? 

Is righteousness the goal of life? 

What, then, is the highest aim of life? 

Shall we reach the goal? 


Is the goal of life worth the cost of the 
journey? 


q “If you ate less, you would not be so fleshy and your 
work would be less taxing.” Thus remarked President 
Eliot to his hired man who was puffing and perspiring 
over a bit of shoveling. 

The man worked on in silence for a few moments 
and then said, “What gives a feller more pleasure than 
eat’n?” 

@ As to what gives the most pleasure in life there is 
great diversity of opinion; but there is a widespread 
belief that “the pursuit of happiness” is the chief aim. 

In respectable prudential circles we are instructed, even 
exhorted, to be discriminating and far-seeing in our 

308 


FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE? 309 


search for happiness; to look beyond the passing hour to 
the whole course of life. 

Sometimes we are admonished to give a place in our 
calculations to our felicity in the life to come. 

Emphasis is often laid upon the fact that our happi- 
ness is involved in the happiness of others and that we 
should, therefore, take that into account. 

A life of service is sometimes recommended on the 

ground that it is the best means of finding our own 
greatest satisfaction. 
@ Frequently religion is “sold” to these happiness 
chasers as the source of material prosperity, the ground 
of spiritual delights, and as a guarantee against the un- 
happiness of future punishment. 

Work, intelligence, character, and more or less self- 
denial, we are told by them, are the recognized price that 
must be paid for the rewarding and luxurious ease of 
the finest happiness. 

When this life is over, if we have been good here, 
there will be nothing but happiness for us; in our future 
lot, God will have the pleasure of being adored and sung 
to and we shall have the privilege of enjoying Him for- 
ever. 

Religion, therefore is worth any man’s while as a 
means of making him happy and more happy until all 
ends in Dliss. 

A secretary of the Young Men’s Christian Association 
told me that he should stop praying when he got to 
Heaven and spend eternity in praising God. 


310 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


It did not occur to him that God might get tired of 
unceasing praise and tell him to stop that singing if he 
loved Him and go to work. 

@ Regardless of where the above instruction begins it 
usually ends in the same place: Love will make us and 
others happy; therefore we should cultivate love. 

To keep the laws of health and the laws of society will 
make us strong and safe; hence we should keep the laws 
and enjoy health and security. 

Because respectability multiplies our comforts and 
privileges and increases happiness, we should carefully 
cultivate respectability. 

@ As a matter of fact, not a little of what has now been 
said is true; but it is far from being the whole truth. 

The whole truth puts its foot down hard on this doc- 
trine that makes happiness the supreme thing and every- 
thing else but a means to that end. 

According to this philosophy, we can buy and sell God, 
religion, and character just as we can buy and sell com- 
modities; for the happiness they will bring. 

Hence the religion that offers the most pleasure and 
prosperity will win the most popular success if it can ful- 
fill its promises promptly. 

As a matter of observation, however, the religion of 
loaves, fishes, and rapturous moods does not last very 
long with the average person who tries it; he can find 
greater thrills in other ways, and may be able to win 
more loaves and fishes by a calculating shrewdness. 


FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE? 311 


Some people, however, are able to follow a religion 
of mere happy moods to the end; and and it makes little 
difference to them what the religion itself is like or by 
what method it produces the happy states as long as it 
succeeds. 

The Hindu ascetic is happy, and completely satisfied 
with his filthy method of obtaining the coma he calls 
peace. 

@ There are a good many sects, Christian and non-Chris- 
tian, that make spiritual intoxication the supreme end of 
life. 

They run to different types of ecstasy, and realize their 
artificial inward glow by different methods and the use 
of different sets of ideas, but the end sought in them all is 
the same—happiness. 

When they have found something that “happifies”’ 
them, they think nothing more is to be said; they have 
reached the highest good. 

An old man once stood up in a revival meeting and 
testified: ‘“O brethren, I feel—I feel, I can’t tell how 
I feel; but oh! I feel—I feel!’ No one knows but that 
he may have felt all right; he may have felt like giving a 
thousand dollars to missions, or like suffering for some 
good cause. Or he may have realized that he had a very 
unusual feeling which he simply enjoyed. 

@ With no higher aim than the pursuit of a selfish hap- 
piness, everything is experimented with today from eat- 
ing and drinking to the most abstruse philosophy; from 


gle WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


laziness to the most strenuous activity; from slovenliness 
to the most fastidious refinement; from wickedness to 
religion. 


1. Is THE PuRSUIT OF HAPPINESS THE [TRUE 
AIM OF LIFE? 


@ By word and deed, multitudes of people avow that 
they honestly think so. 

The self-respecting among them would resent the 
thought that it includes the coarser pleasures, but would 
not hesitate to affirm that intellectual and spiritual hap- 
piness is the supreme goal to be sought by us all. 

The foolish and the wicked are foolish and wicked 
because they accept the lower pleasures, and _ sacrifice 
the higher and more enduring. 

The wise and the good are wise and good because they 
forego all such lower pleasures as would prevent them 
from obtaining the higher. 

According to this view, we work, we love, we obey 
conscience, we worship God—if it is thought necessary— 
for the prize of more happiness in this life and, possibly, 
endless happiness in the life to come. 

Some struggle on through this life and endure hard- 
ships with no higher hope than that of finding a place at 
last where there will be no more tears, no sighs, no pain; 
but felicity and unruffled bliss forever. 

@ We do not deny that happiness is beautiful and sacred. 

God himself must be reasonably happy, even under exs 
isting circumstances, and He wishes us to be happy. 


FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE? 203 


To desire a life of cheer and deep satisfaction for our- 
selves and others is neither a sin nor a weakness; but 
a virtue. | 

The true goal of life offers more happiness than we 
have ever dreamed of, and more than we are yet able 
to comprehend. 

But the great insanity of singling out happiness and 
making it the end of all things, is what Carlyle satirized 
as the “pig philosophy.” Pigs seek happiness from morn- 
ing till night and the porkbarrel is their fate. 

To set up happiness—of any kind—as the supreme 
end, is to obscure the meaning of life itself and thereby 
work great injury. 

@ Especially does this concentration on the quest of hap- 
piness exert a baneful influence upon the young, the 
thoughtless, and the weak. 

The average person imbued with this idea of what life 
is for reasons thus: Since all are seeking the same end, 
their own greatest happiness, my aim shall be the same as 
theirs. Opinions differ as to what gives the greatest 
enjoyment. If I do not get happiness now I may never 
get it. 

So, whenever pleasures in hand do not continue to give 
me satisfaction, I will try for more satisfying forms of 
gratification in other directions; possibly I may become 
religious. Or, it may be that I can enjoy the questionable 
pleasures of this life and, by repenting when they are 
over for me, secure bliss in the life to come. 

To many that would seem an ideal program; it would 


314 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


look to them like getting a double portion of happiness 
for themselves. 

@ None of this is meant to imply that God does not wish 
us to get all the happiness that is good for us—and that 
is no small amount. 

God intended that we should get much pleasure, from 
the normal use of our five senses all the way up to the 
highest use of our intellectual and spiritual faculties. 

A good appetite and wholesome food, and all other 
legitimate pleasures, afford as great satisfaction to a 
saint as to a sinner; in the long run, much more. 

It would be a calamity if the necessary feeding of our 
human furnace, the body, gave us no more delight than 
feeding the coal furnace which heats our homes. 

It is said of the early Christians that ‘They took their 
food with gladness of heart, praising God, and having 
favor with all the people.” 

The partaking of a meal with friends, when gratitude 
to God and good Christian fellowship abound, becomes 
almost a sacrament. 

The physical pleasure, blending with the social delight, 
takes nothing from the fine quality of either, but adds 
something to both. 

The exuberance of spirits that comes from a strong 
and healthy body makes a contribution of efficiency and 
zest to everything we do. We can work, or love, or 
pray better if we have physical buoyancy to do it on. 
@ As animal life takes the mineral and vegetable ele- 
ments up into itself and puts its own vitality into them 


FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE? 315 


so the spiritual life lifts the physical and intellectual up 
into itself and puts its divinity into them. 

If there were no delight to be had in life, life would 
be unbearable for both God and man. 

Happiness is not something to be despised, but cause 
for profound gratitude to God. 

It will not do, however, if we are to get even the 
maximum of happiness, to make a search for it the 
supreme aim of life. 

The possession of children constitutes a very great 
enjoyment, but a child is of much more importance than 
any amount of enjoyment his parents take in him. 

With a broken heart, noble mothers have been known 

to give up their babies because they could not do the 
right thing by them. Less noble mothers under like 
circumstances, have kept their children to their great 
injury because they were not willing to forego the pleas- 
ure of having their children with them. 
@ No kind of happiness can be made the supreme goal 
because none is sufficiently inclusive; they all overlook 
too many things; they are too subjective; they all, when 
directly sought, smack too much of selfishness—and_ be- 
sides, the highest good involves no small measure of 
suffering. 

Jesus said of Paul, “I will show him how many things 
he must suffer for my name’s sake.” 

And Paul said, ‘We also rejoice in our tribulations: 
knowing that tribulation worketh steadfastness; and 
steadfastness, approvedness ; and approvedness, hope; and 


316 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


hope putteth not to shame; because the love of God hath 
been shed abroad in our hearts.” 

A. few verses later, Paul again said: “But we also re- 
joice in God.” 

Anyone who studies the life of Paul, will see that the 
apostle was not happy over his happiness but because he 
was reconciled to God and was walking in newness of 
life; because he was pressing toward the glorious mark 
of a high calling. 

Sorrow and joy both awaited him, but he was no more 
thinking of them than a self-respecting man is always 
thinking of his pay while he works. 


2. Is RIGHTEOUSNESS THE GOAL OF LIFE? 


@ Righteousness is a much more worthy thought to 
dwell upon and object to aim at than happiness. 

When I can not be both, I would rather be right than 
comfortable. 

When my now sainted wife used to criticise me, I often 
remarked, “It hurts, but go on; I want to know the 
truth.”’ 

Righteousness of heart, as Jesus conceived of it, brings 
us wonderfully near to the heart of God and to the hearts 
of our fellowmen; and causes us to undertake a thou- 
sand things we never should even think of, let alone do, 
without it. 

Yet the appreciation of these splendid new things to 
do, and the effort to do them cause us to forget all about 
our righteousness. 


FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE? 317 


When we have plenty of strength, or plenty of right- 
eousness, we forget it in our enthusiastic absorption in 
what we are doing; just as we forget our eyes in the 
interesting page before them. 

The fact that sound and healthy righteousness forgets 
itself in its tasks, is sufficient proof that it is not the 
supreme aim of life. 

We are not good unless we are good for something. 

@ God’s goodness, no more than ours, begins and ends 
in itself; He is not thinking all the time of how good 
He is, but of the good He 1s trying to accomplish. 

When either our strength or our goodness begins to 
fail us, then we become very self-conscious over it. 

We are warranted in believing that the all-righteous 
God “looks up and not down, out and not in, and lends 
a hand.” 

He does not spend his time in contemplating His 
perfect attributes, but in responding to the urge to do 
something worthy and worth while with them. 

The same would be true of us if we had God’s kind of 
righteousness in abundance; but since we have not, it is 
one of the great and noble ends to be sought. 

If we all were like God in holiness, then we would be- 
come fascinated with the real business of life as God 
sees it and intends it to be; and we should find higher 
and higher objectives to compass. 

The man who “seeks righteousness first” is in every 
way superior to the one who seeks happiness first. 

He is nobler, more sensible, more substantial; he is 


318 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


developing that divine thing called personality, he is 
making himself more useful, he is putting the horse be- 
fore the cart, he is facing in the right direction; that 
is, if his righteousness is of the right quality, if it is the 
righteousness that “exceeds that of the scribe and 
Pharisee.”’ 
@ Much that is called righteousness but little resembles 
the goodness of God; it is narrow and covers too little; or 
it may be too exacting and demand its pound of flesh, an 
eye for an eye, its tooth for a tooth; or it may be largely 
taboo, or conformity to stupid rites and ceremonies. 

Unless our “righteousness exceeds that of the scribes 
and Pharisees,’ we shall never comprehend the Kingdom 
that Jesus was speaking about. The righteousness of 
God contains love and vision; in fact, it contains every- 
thing that goes to make up a glad, strong, and brotherly 
life. And such a life, even if it were God’s, can not 
stand alone; for grand as it appears when we isolate it 
in our thought it does not complete the picture of life. 

Unless we see what holiness is for, we do not even 
know what holiness is. 

Unless there is something to be righteous about, there 
is no righteousness. 


3. Wuat, THEN, Is THE HicHest Arm or Lire? 


@ It must be something definite and easy to visualize. It 
must include all good; it must be the highest aim for 
God, as well as for man; it must be the one thing for 
which God, man, and God’s universe exist. 


FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE? 319 


@iIs there anything of which it can be truthfully 
said: This, and this only, is the supreme end of all 
being? 

There is. It can be expressed in three words. One 
Perfect Family. Or, the same thing may be put in four 
words: The Kingdom of God. 

@ The kingdom of God is one perfect family of which 
God is the Father, all people are the children, and the 
universe 1s both their home and their workshop. 

@ A heavenly Father, loving brothers and sisters, a beau- 
tiful home, ingenious instruments, all these to be de- 
voutly appreciated and guarded with religious care: The 
idea is so simple that a child can comprehend its mean- 
ing and feel its appeal, and yet so rich in possibilities that 
none but God can fathom its depths. 

@ It covers all that God is, all that is latent in His chil- 
dren, and every good use to which the universe can be 
turned. It includes all intelligence, all duty, all love, all 
righteousness, all happiness, all power; in short, it contains 
all reality. There can not possibly be anything above it, 
beneath it, nor beyond it. No good thing in this uni- 
verse, subjective or objective, spiritual or material, is left 
out. 

The perfect family of God can not be realized unless 
we avail ourselves of all the fullness of God’s life; it 
can never be realized while we are indifferent to God and 
our brothers, or while we misuse the forces constituting 
the home and the instruments which God has put into 
our hands; it cannot be realized unless we clearly see 


320 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


the goal and earnestly strive for it by the help of God and 
the help of one another. 

And if it can never be realized, then God has nothing 
left for which to live; he has failed to realize His pur- 
pose, and our fate will be to perish. 

@ Everything that Jesus taught was set forth in the 
light of “The Kingdom.” 

God, man, righteousness, love, eternal life, and every- 
thing which Jesus discoursed upon, got its meaning from 
this supreme message of the kingdom of God; and apart 
from it, not one thing in this universe could be appraised 
at its true meaning and value. 

This beautiful and all-inclusive idea of the kingdom was 
the “good news” that Jesus proclaimed. It was the grain 
of mustard seed that He said would grow into a tree. 
The truth about the kingdom was the leaven which He 
deposited in the hearts of a few simple men and women 
that it might leaven the whole lump of humanity. 

To Jesus, the idea of the One Perfect Family was the 
thought that lay in the mind and purpose of God from 
all eternity and to which God has devoted His whole 
being. For the realization of the One Perfect Family, 
God still lives and perpetually dies in the deaths of His 
children who are crucified for their fidelity to the king- 
dom of God. 

Jesus thrust this message upon a world that did not 
heartily welcome it, and backed the message with His 
whole life. When the chief priests and Pharisees re- 
jected it, He said: ‘“The kingdom of God shall be taken 


FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE? 321 


away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing 
forth the fruits thereof.” 

In the mind of Jesus, nothing was of any account 
that did not contribute to the building up of this holy 
family, this everlasting kingdom of God. In behalf of 
the people about Him, Jesus longed for many things and 
recognized many needs, but told them that all these things 
would be added once they heartily accepted the kingdom 
of God. 

Truly, Our Father knows that we have need of many 
things, but the best of them He can never give us, if we 
will not seek His kingdom; and the common necessaries of 
life, in that event, we are likely to steal from one another. 
@ When we shall become fully sensible that a real Chris- 
tian is one who draws upon all the powers of the universe 
to enable him to become a good member of God’s family, 
perfecting His reconciliation, increasing his skill, learning 
to treat the universe as the furnished home of God and 
His children—when we have come to realize all this, how 
contemptible will much of the religion that is in the 
world appear. 

No one is a better Christian than he is a good member 
of God’s family and no one is Jess a Christian than he 
is a good member of God’s family—regardless of the 
religious name by which he is known. 

@ I am amazed when I see bewildered people puzzling 
over what the final and perfect religion is to be. The 
religion of the Kingdom, the religion of One Perfect 
Family, is the most perfect religion conceivable, the only 


322 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


religion to be desired, and the only religion fit to be 
treasured in the mind and heart of God. 

A good God, with a good family, in a good universe, 
name and describe the highest superlatives among our 
dreams of the desirable. 

That nothing better will ever be conceived, you could 
safely wager your soul. 

We want nothing better, and if anything different were 
offered us, we would turn it down as inferior instantly. 
@ No one should be left in doubt as to what the supreme 
aim of life is: 

As an idea, it is the idea of the Perfect Family of God, 
suitably housed and amply equipped to live the life of 
the spirit. 

As a faith, it is the confidence that God and His good 
children working together will somewhere, sometime, 
make their idea of the kingdom a gloriously realized 
fact. 

As an experience, it is a consciousness that God has 
already won us over to the worship of his supreme idea 
and purpose; that He is successfully purifying us and 
making us fit to be members of His family; that He has 
already induced us by His constraining love to volunteer 
our services in His great cause; that we have begun to 
know (a) what it means to have all our powers engaged 
in an enterprise that is worthy of God and His children, 
and (b) to be blessed and strengthened by a glorious 
company of friends who see eye to eye with us and our 
father in this life-giving and family-making enterprise, 


FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE? 323 


that shall yet cause the universe to resound with the tri- 
umphant note of victory. 

As to what the all-inclusive aim of life is, my heart 

is at perfect rest. The aim just described is so definite 
and concrete that I can clearly visualize it and feel per- 
fectly confident while I do so, that if I remain steadfast 
in my pursuit of this goal, every hidden thing must 
progressively appear. 
@ My only embarrassment lies in the fact that I still have 
many weaknesses to overcome, much ignorance to dispel, 
greater love to acquire, and larger tasks to perform—for 
which I am poorly equipped. 

But I am persuaded that God will not let me go, and 
that the vision will not leave me; for after every defeat, 
when I look up, I can still see the great end of life, like 
an immovable mountain, standing there before me, 

Though influences sometimes deflect my will from the 
magnetic meridian, yet, sooner or later, the lode-star 
draws it back to the right course; and with contrition of 
heart, and a new sense of dependence upon God, I again 
press toward this completely soul-satisfying goal. 

Without this definite vision of what everything is for, 
I am certain that I should flounder in the bog and cry 
in the dark. 

@ This glorious, definite and all-inclusive answer to the 
question ‘For what do God, nature, and all men exist?” is 
what the world most needs to know with the mind and 
experience with the heart; for, until then, 70 man has any 
unifying vision that will bear comparison with it, any 


324 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


way of understanding the true meaning and worth of 
anything; until then, the main purpose purposed by 
different men will be different and they will fight against 
God and one another. 

To define the goal as happiness, righteousness, eternal 
life, or anything else partial or less than the rounded 
whole, is like prizing one thread pulled from a beautiful 
and costly garment above the garment itself. 

A noble edifice is worth something more and different 
from any one or all of the unassembled parts from which 
it is made; and the Perfect Family of God in their uni- 
verse home, when once it is realized, will mean much 
more than any one or all of its constituent parts by them- 
selves. 

@ Put anything you like off by itself in complete and 
perpetual isolation and it ceases to have value; even of 
God this would be true. 

God is not great simply because He is great; isolate 
Him in His greatness and He and it would become negli- 
gible; He is great because He is the Great Father and 
can not get along without children to give His fatherhood 
significance. 

When the parts combine and interlace to form a perfect 
whole, then and then only the meaning and relative value 
of each part can be properly estimated. 

The only perfect whole which is capable of being woven 
out of this universe is the kingdom of God. 

This explains why it will not do to single out God, 
or man, much less any one of their individual traits or 


FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE? 325 


states as the supreme end of life; but with the picture of 
the One Perfect Family as the whole in our minds every 
part shines with new luster. 

God, the Supreme Being, becomes unutterably awe- 
inspiring as the center and soul of the whole physical and 
spiritual universe. 

Man becomes sublime as God’s offspring; as a member 
of the God-family who may, if he will, grow to be ever 
more like his Father and codperate with Him ever more 
extensively in achieving the end for which all things exist. 

Nature, God’s handiwork, becomes thrilling to know 

and glorious to use in the service of God and man. 
@ The picture of God, man, and nature taken and co- 
ordinated together into a family, perfect in character 
and perfectly equipped, reveals a glory that fills the 
heavens. 

To be members of, and have even a small part to play, 
in such a household, to be a worthy partner—however 
humble—and have the privilege of loving and being 
loved, of serving and being served, is a destiny for which 
anyone, if it were required at his hand, might willingly 
surrender his earthly all. 

This was the vision that sustained Jesus when He went 
to the cruel cross. 

Wonderful it certainly is to see frail man rise up to 
fulfill such a destiny, but, miracle though it be in the 
telling, the fact is that for this very goal we were earnestly 
sought after by a loving Father. 

@ In the light of this answer to the question for what 


326 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


do God, nature, and all men exist, let us now look at 
the righteousness of God. 

It is no longer a sort of crystallized purity that dartles 
and dazzles like a cold diamond; something at which we 
gaze through the telescope of faith for the mere rapture 
that comes from gazing at something startlingly beautiful 
but remote. 

His righteousness as. we can now see, is that of a 

kind Father who is not above dwelling with His most 
lowly children in the filth and stench of the world; who 
seeks every opportunity to bear their sorrows and to 
forgive their sins; who suffers any abuse they may heap 
upon Him, with no thought of retaliation; who feels un- 
der infinite obligation to His weakest and most sinful 
child to come to its succor; who sees worth and limitless 
possibilities in the most degraded; who shirks no duty 
toward His children because of any suffering it may cause 
Him; who shuns no hell if His children are determined 
to pass through it; this.is the way that righteousness be- 
haves which is the righteousness of One whose goal for 
Himself and His children is One Perfect Family. 
@ God is determined that all His children shall know 
Him and be made to feel the impact of His life upon 
theirs; it is in order that He may impart His life to us, 
that all barriers must be burned away. 

He does not unfeelingly permit His children to go 
through the Inferno simply that they may look upon His 
abstract righteousness when they emerge from the flame. 
_ If His children will go to hell, or if cruel-hearted men 


FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE? 327 


force them there, He goes with them that He may be 
at hand to comfort and forgive when they cry and stretch 
out their hands to him in their last extremity. 

The God whom Jesus revealed does not sit withdrawn 
on a dazzling white throne to judge the world, but de- 
scends into hell to redeem the world. 


O love divine, that stoop’d to share 

Our sharpest pang, our bitt’rest tear, 
On Thee we cast each earth-born care, 
We smile at pain while Thou art near. 


@ That is, God could have no righteousness at all if 
He were not the true and loving Father of a family. 

There is no righteousness to be retained or acquired 
in isolation, nor is there room for any in a mechanical 
world. 

A key when it fits the lock is right, but a mechanical 
thing such as a key is never righteous. 

A mere mechanical God without children to love, ‘to 
serve, to forgive, and to transform into worthy members 
of His Holy Family, such a mechanical being would 
be no more righteous than the piece of metal with which 
you unlock your door. 

When we squarely face the true goal of family life 
with God and other men in a universe that is our home, 
when we taste and see how good the first taste of it 1s, 
when we enter a little way into the suffering, redeeming 
love of God for man and feel His righteous love begin- 
ning to burn in our own hearts; when our minds experi- 


328 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


ence illumination cast upon them by the transcendent hope 
of bringing all things into perfect accord with His loving 
purpose, then service, love, righteousness, Eternal Life, 
happiness—all these familiar terms—glow with a white 
light as if an electric current were passing through them. 
q A feeling of dependence upon God is good, and neces- 
sary, because we certainly are dependent; a sense of sins 
forgiven is sweet, for surely we have been crushed be- 
neath a load of sin and guilt; the joy that comes with 
the awakening of divine love is most welcome, because 
we have been depressed by its absence—each one of these 
things is very necessary and very good, but religion in- 
cludes them all, and more; it is vision, bright as the sun, 
broad as the universe, high as the heavens, enduring as 
time. 

That vision is a vision of a harmonious universe pre- 
sided over, filled, and directed by a loving Father; a 
vision of God’s kingdom, of One Perfect Family. 

If you are not beckoned on your way daily by this goal, 
your religious experiences have been too superficial; you 
have not found the right clue to what it is all about; 
you have not fully grasped the meaning of Christ’s mes- 
sage; you must still be wondering just exactly what the 
supreme thing is for which we live. 

Until we Christians all begin to travel by this beacon, 
probably we will continue to quarrel and divide over 
trifles, and the world will be confused and inclined to 
continue its pursuit of happiness through the acquisition 
and enjoyment of material things. 


FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE? 329 


4. SHALL WE REACH THE.GOAL? 


@ We shall never reach a point where no more achieve- 
ment lies beyond, where there will be no more heights 
to scale, no more knowledge to gain, no fuller and richer 
love to possess, no more service to render, no more plans 
to execute. 

Progress will never cease, because its cessation would 
mean that God’s children had exhausted His fullness. 

Whatever heights we may reach, those heights will 
only serve as a starting point for resumption of the 
upward climb. 

Further development and enrichment of the family will 
forever continue to be both possible and the highest aim 
of God and His children. : 

But the lesser goal of the abolition of man’s inhumanity 
to man and disobedience to God, when every man shall 
have reached the fullness of the stature of Christ, was a 
thought that filled the Apostle Paul’s mind with a glorious 
hope. : 

Our immediate concern is how to bring all people and 
all institutions to make the Great Surrender and submit 
ungrudgingly to the sway of God’s gracious will. This 
is the specific goal that we are now considering. Shall 
we reach it? 

@ When we pray that the kingdoms of this world, the 
kingdoms of selfishness, may become the kingdom of 
God, we do not limit our hopes to the nations and em- 
pires of the present day, nor to the relatively few people 


330 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


who could live on earth in the last days; for much as 
we hope to see this earth one day entirely redeemed to 
the Lord, yet that victory alone would be one too small. 

The countless billions who had lived through the mil- 
lenniums preceding our own, and the greater billions who 
would have lived before the final victory of redeeming 
the earth, would be gone. Thousands of nations would 
have been wiped out. 

Simply to succeed with those nations living near the 
end of time, in the enterprise of saving the world, though 
a marvelous achievement in itself, would, relatively speak- 
ing, amount all told to a very small victory. 

The people living today whom we are trying to save 
would have disappeared, and we too should be gone. 

Our prayer is that the worldly, rebellious nations that 
now live, those that have lived, as well as those that shall 
yet live on this earth may be brought into the kingdom 
of God. 

Can God and His redeemed children working together, 

win this greater victory? 
q Even to succeed in bringing us professing Christians 
into such a relation to God and one another as we have 
pictured and described is a vast and marvelous under- 
taking. 

Will Christians, even, ever become a perfectly obedient 
family among themselves? Perfectly devoted to the 
Father and to one another? Not merely one in mutual 
admiration, but one in all the exacting relations of life? 

Without more redeeming grace and more of the same 


FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE? 331 


kind of discipline that we are having here it is not likely 
that they will on earth, nor in the life to-come. 

Death will not carry us to moral perfection. 

On first awaking from death, we shall doubtless won- 
der; but it will take something more than wonder to make 
us like our Master. 

Our character, the minute after death, will be prac- 
tically the same as it was the minute before we died. 

We shall have to face the tasks there that we shirked, 
or for any reason failed to complete, here. 

For, if there were nothing to do there, no alternatives 
to choose between, no exacting situations to face, no 
temptations to encounter, then obedience would mean 
nothing; life itself would mean nothing. 

We shall not be good until we are good in a real world. 

If we should ever get into some fanciful sphere beyond 

the real world, there would be no chance of being good 
in that realm. 
@ Life will always be a trust, and we shall always be 
responsible to God and to one another for the service 
we render; for the use we make of the talents and forces 
with which we have been equipped. 

There, as here, perfect obedience to God will cost 
enough to be worthy of merit. 

But when we Christians have come to see and appre- 
ciate that a good God, with a good family, in a good 
universe, equipped with good instruments for the per- 
formance of the works of the spirit is our goal; when 
we have come to love and trust God in everything; when 


332 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


we have learned to love His will and to feel the sweetness 
and the power of His presence; when we have become 
willing to codperate with one another in the execution of 
God’s plan to the extent of our capacity, then the first 
great end, a perfectly harmonized family, shall be at- 
tained; and life will be unspeakably rich and full. 

We have every reason to hope that we shall yet reach 
this goal; and every one that hath this hope in him, 
purifieth himself even as Jesus Himself was pure. 

@ Since so much is necessary to be done for us Christians 
after death before we reach the moral and spiritual per- 
fections of Jesus, may we indulge the larger hope? May 
all men be brought into the One Perfect Family? Or, 
will there forever remain a vast host of rebels? A king- 
dom of darkness, a warring kingdom of sin, suffering, 
and despair? 

qj It must be admitted that the bringing of all men into 
the kingdom of God is an almost unthinkably difficult 
undertaking, and that its accomplishment would be a 
staggering achievement. 

And yet, God and His cooperating children can set for 
themselves no less a goal nor should this larger hope be 
allowed to lead us into sin and indifference. 

The task will cause God and all of us untold suffering 
if we undertake it vigorously and at once. 

All delay, all indifference, only adds to the difficulties 
of the problem and multiplies sorrow upon sorrow for 
God and all His children. 

I believe, however, that it can be, and that it will be 


FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE? 333 


accomplished ; but if it is, the light of the more abundant 
life of God must shine through men of-the stature of 
Jesus into the dark places of the heart of many a sinful 
rebel. 

God must find children in whom He can first enter 
and then go with them to those who are in the valley 
of the shadow of death and plead with them to make 
up and be friends with Him. 

Though hymns and prayers are good, yet the religion 
that is to make any headway at this formidable task 
must mean infinitely more than what is ordinarily meant 
by worship. 

It must cover the entire life, the whole life, both of 
the individual and of the society engaged in the enter- 
prise of bringing the world into the loving righteous 
family of God; for until then, we, whom God needs to 
use as saviours, are ourselves imperfect sons, in need of 
further redemption. 

The Christian himself is but very imperfectly saved 
until he has become a God-embodied and a God-carrying 
instrument in the saving of other men to righteousness 
in all their relations to God and to one another. 

@ There are many reasons for believing that probation 
will never arbitrarily end for any one; the door will 
always be open to come in or to go out. 

The good will reach a position where they will not 
want to go out and where their destiny or salvation will 
be morally certain. 

The difficult question to answer with assurance is, 


334 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


will sinners ever reach a position that is beyond re- 
demption? 

I once thought so. There is no doubt but that char- 
acter, within indefinitely wide limits, does rapidly tend 
toward a fixed state. 

When the prodigal turns his eyes toward the far coun- 
try, he is hard to stop. He is definitely headed for the 
pigsty and the husks. His life aflame with riotous living, 
every step taken by him makes it more certain where 
he will end up. 

Sin in any form is dreadfully likely to run its full 
course, its aeon—its age-long course. This is true of 
sin in all its forms. 

What hope for the perversely wicked is there then? 

I once believed there was none; but I have changed 
my mind. 

All sin must be punished ; and the results of that punish- 
ment must last as a bitter aftermath long after repentence 
and forgiveness; and if there is no repentence—forever. 

Jesus came to take away our sins and to give us more 
abundant life, but not to take away our just punishment. 

The lost cannot be saved without definite personal help 
from God through His faithful sons and daughters. 

@ I once learned of a very strange old man within the 
bounds of my parish whose character was supposed to 
be unalterably fixed. 

One day I called to see him. His wife with great 
reluctance and apparent fear finally permitted me to see 


FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE? 335 


him; if, as she said, “you are not afraid.” She simply 
pointed to the door of his room. 

After rapping on the door, I opened it. There sat 
an old man in the seventies with long and disheveled hair. 
His beard was stringy and unkempt. His clothes were 
filthy. His finger nails had grown around the ends of 
his fingers like claws. 

I gave him my name and the name of my Church. 

With one of the ugliest voices I ever heard, a voice 
that sounded like the low squeal of a pig, he said, “I 
suppose you have great respect for that bastard son of 
Mary?” 

“Oh,” said I, “I -have great respect ior Jesus, but I 

did not come in to talk to you about Him. I heard that 
you were an old man shut in and not well, and I thought 
how nice it would be if I could run in a minute and do 
something to break the monotony; to give you something 
pleasant to think about. 
_ “You and I could have a good time together if you 
are willing. There is a wonderful difference you know 
in friends; some make us have such hateful thoughts and 
feelings while others set us to thinking in channels that 
awaken kindly feelings.” 

“My friends have done everything for me, and I do 
not see what I ever should have done or what good thing 
I could have become without them. By the way, Jesus 
taught that you and I are brothers.” 

@ If I could have had him in the bath tub for about 


336 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


fifteen minutes, it would have been easier; nevertheless, 
I stood by the Gospel. 

Though I always was chock full of theology, yet I 
knew enough to keep that in the background in this case. 

I told God to take my body, and use my lips; to make 
me as far as possible, like Jesus to this old man. 

After a few minutes of kindly conversation, the crack- 

ling, gutteral voice again sounded: “If ever there was a 
Christian in the world my mother was one. But my 
father was an old brute. My mother was a cripple and 
the mother of seven children. Many a time I’ve seen 
my father kick my poor crippled mother all over the 
floor of the room.” 
@ There he was! Telling me these deep family secrets 
and praising the Christian character of his mother! And 
the sense of God’s love filled my heart as I saw the good 
kindling into fire within him. 

No other call I could have made that day would have 
brought me such a realization of God’s boundless com- 
passion. 

The effort it cost me to be a bodily presence for the 
infinite love of God was an unspeakable privilege. 

When I arose to go I said, “I must go now because 
I do not wish to make you tired—I shall want to call 
again.” 

A plaintive appeal entered that old cracked voice as 
he said, “Come again—won’t you? and come soon.” 

When I opened the door, there stood his wife eaves- 
dropping. She threw up her hands saying, “A miracle! 


FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE? 337 


A miracle! I should have expected him to drive a min- 
ister out of the house.” 

“Yes,” I replied. “A miracle of love.” 

@ The next time I called, the old man was in bed and 
tidied up to look very respectable. 

After a little more brotherly talk I said, “I am going 
to pray the prayer which Jesus taught us. I would be 
glad to have you join me if you will—but not unless 
you desire.” 

I began, “Our Father.’’ Never before had it meant 
so much. Our Father—the father of this old man and 
me. 

And the old man mumbled the prayer through with me 
to the great joy of our Father in heaven. 

This man and his wife came,to love me as a brother, 
and were equally loved by me in return. 

When I went home, the light so followed me that I 
kissed my wife with new fervor and said grace with 
new meaning as the family gathered about the table for 
the evening meal. 

I had been into the far country and had brought back 
a prodigal son who had forgotten, if ever he knew, that 
he had a Father to whom he could return. 

He had run a long and dreadful course; his character 
seemed fixed; he had neither light nor strength to re- 
turn. 

However, the event proved that he could be found and 
led back to his Father’s house. 

Sin of every description leads to degradation and de- 


330 WHAT AND WHY IS MAN? 


spair; but the boundless love of God is ready to descend 
into the deepest hell whenever it can find one of His 
children that is willing to go with Him there. 

It is my fondest hope that we may have a chance in 
the future life to do this glorious work which we have 
so largely and so shamefully neglected on earth. 

It will be no small task, but I am compelled to believe 
that when we are more saved ourselves, we shall be able 
to bring all God’s children into the fold. 

At least, we may believe that all will be brought in 
if it is possible. 


5. Is THE Goat oF Lire WorTH THE COST OF THE 
JOURNEY? 

@ The goal which is set before us is worth God, man, 

and the universe; it is worth all these in their most per- 

fect, harmonious relations. 

That is the limit; no greater value is conceivable. 

It is sometimes said of selfish, grasping people that 
they want “the earth’; but the Christian may actually 
possess the universe; its Maker and its inhabitants. 

“All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or 
Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, 
or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ’s; 
and Christ is God's.” 

If that is not a goal that offers a prize of sufficient 
value, then there is nothing more to be said. 

If one cannot be aroused to strive for such a prize, 
he must be left among the dead and forgotten. 


FOR WHAT DO WE LIVE? 339 


@ The cost of the journey need not frighten us. 

If there are hardships, there are proportionate joys. 
If there are fears, there is “a peace that passeth all 
understanding.” 

The reward is not infinitely remote; one does not have 
to run the whole race before he receives his first portion 
of the prize. Though the sky is high, yet it begins at 
the ground; and though the goal stretches into eternity, 
yet it begins at our feet. 

We may, as individuals, catch hold of the prize this 
minute, and get a firmer grasp upon it every minute 
that we grow “in wisdom and stature, and in favor with 
God and man.” 

We may hold God in loving hearts now, we may be 
rich in our human friendships now, we may commence 
using the things about us to perform the works of the 
spirit now; we may do all these things in a fuller sense 
tomorrow—the next day, and forever. 


aw 
J i) Ph 
ie eh vite | 
‘ tak aie 
+ ee Ee! 


e' nly 


& 
Pa Es t. 


1k Aunt 
PEs ET oR we Oe 
La Se i) 
Sees alia ale Ae 


eerie 
ae nf 
Aleg 5 i) Met) 


; 


wr, 
4 
hg 
was 
iA 
eae 
a) 


ee (ele 
iy ch 68 
fois at be 
ff “ tdi 
ip Lug 


DA 9) 
* | 


a Vi 
fist re, t 


ey 


eit te 
Aap Si 7 
Waid ¥ 





LF fy Fi 
este 
> (Na 





+ 


> glad Spas eee 
UA ghee ee 
Sar cat PA a 


a *) 


“a ti Pty 


h KF | 
» Y 











| 


| 


il 
| 
014 447 


| 


IMM 


| 


> 
Cc 
cS 
S 
Ee 
o 
A) 
ro 
4 
D> 
s—— 
° 
© 
= 
= 
c 
° 
@ 
° 
4 
a 


1 1012 01 


WAI 











